


The feel of family

by Nggu



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Fluff and Humor, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2019-09-28 20:46:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 29,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17190110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nggu/pseuds/Nggu
Summary: What if Cora-san never died? What if Ace, Luffy and Sabo got to grow up together? What if one day a young Law met the even younger ASL brothers and everyone was a little shit? Someone should probably feel bad for Dadan.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So the first few chapters are very much transitional. The ASL brothers don't get to meet Law for a little while yet, and until then the mood is going to be a bit more somber. There'll be plenty of comedy later, I promise!
> 
> This fic was influenced by the works of Kereea and "For better or for worse" by Syluk.
> 
> Constructive criticism (and other comments) are very welcome, whether it be on the spelling or on the story.

Chapter 1.

 

 

”It’s going to be okay, Law. I promise you it’s all going to be okay,” Cora-san muttered from his sickbed, as if it was Law that was in danger of dying.

Well he was, had been since the first white splotches had manifested on his body as a child, but his death was unlikely to happen in the following 24 hours. Law wasn’t even sure he cared anymore, there’d been too much fear and struggle and pain and even though he was nowhere near ready to give up, especially now, he did sometimes catch himself wondering whether it was all pointless or not.

Cora-san had given him everything he had and everything the man had ever wanted or dreamed of, just on the off chance of being able to save some random kid dying of an incurable illness. Cora-san had almost died, and still might, just to give Law his devil fruit. A devil fruit Law still didn’t know how to use. The edges of Law’s mouth curled up into a self-deprecating smile, ill-suited to his childish face. Wouldn’t that just be the cherry on top of a disastrous life: to die when he was so close to a cure, just because he was too stupid to figure out how to use the power of a god-damn magic fruit.

“Try to sleep Cora-san. I’m fine.” And he was, the beating he’d gotten from Vergo was hardly life-threatening and right now he really didn’t care about himself at all. Cora-san had gotten shot several times, on top of already being beaten severely. They’d gotten saved by marines in the nick of time, forcing the Donquixote pirates to back off. The ships commanding officer, Tsuru, had recognized Cora-san and ordered the ships doctors to immediately apply first aid. Once on the ship he’d been rushed into surgery, which had lasted for 12 hours. Cora-san had survived but the doctors were cautioning Law, telling him that at this point nothing was sure yet.

Law had been sitting by Cora-sans bed the entire 8 hours since the surgery, his own wounds having been hastily treated by a doctor’s apprentice while the older man was taken care of. Cora-san had only woken up once, clearly disassociated and hazy on the drugs. He’d been mumbling a bunch of nonsense Law couldn’t really make sense of, most of it not having even been real words. His first coherent sentence had been to reassure Law, and Law had never felt so conflicted between strangling someone and sobbing on them. He wasn’t about to leave his saviours bedside no matter what the marines guarding the room said.

“You need sleep too,” one of them insisted, the only one who was willing to be within breathing distance of the boy with Amber Lead poisoning. Everyone on board had been informed that despite the rumors, the disease wasn’t actually infectious, but most of them preferred not taking any chances. Law was only too glad to have them keep their distance, otherwise he might’ve been tempted to grab a knife and stab all the government bastards to death. As far as he was concerned the only good person that’d ever been employed by the government was Cora-san and the rest of them could go die in a heap of bloodied pain and revenge.

But for now he and Cora-san needed the marine’s protection and had no way of escaping anyway, so he gritted his teeth and assured the woman he was fine.

The marine was not so easily dissuaded however. “The Vice-Admiral says you have to sleep, since you’re not going to learn how to control your powers unrested.”

Law dug his fingernails into his thighs in an attempt to stay calm. Pain was a very familiar thing to him, it helped ground him. “Well then I’ll sleep here. I’m not leaving Cora-san.” He didn’t trust these bastards one bit. They might’ve saved Cora-san but that didn’t mean they weren’t going to take him prisoner or straight-out kill him once they learned the extent of what the man had done. Although the Vice-Admiral undoubtedly already knew, she was smart.

The marine remained unimpressed, this time turning to one of her companions. “Bring in an extra bed, I guess the kid sleeps here tonight.”

Law’s eyes caught the eyes of the marine in surprise. “I don’t need any favours from you,” he hissed in disgust. The adult didn’t say anything, just rolled her eyes as if tired of the conversation.

Law ached to have his knife with him, he wanted to stabstabstab the light out of those condescending eyes until blood gushed from the wounds would cover the sickbay floor and the woman’s screams would die out into deadly unconsciousness. Law’s fingers dug into his thighs painfully enough to startle him from his murder fantasies. It was hard keeping his composure when surrounded on all sides by the people he hated the most, but he had to, for Cora-san. He would raze the world government into a heaping pile of ash another day.

Even when he got a bed of his own, right next to Cora-san, Law found that sleep was an impossibility. The talking marine was left to guard the room even after the lights were turned off and there were at least two more outside the door. No matter how tired he was, he just couldn’t relax enough to sleep. Instead he burrowed under his blankets, where the guard couldn’t see him, and gathered his thoughts.

Almost immediately after eating the devil fruit Law could tell that something in him was different. It wasn’t anything concrete and he couldn’t really identify what exactly felt different, but something definitely did. The most obvious thing was the boost of energy he’d gotten from it. Before eating the fruit he’d been effectively dying, barely able to keep his eyes open but after it he’d been well able to walk, run and even take a beating without losing consciousness. Some of it could be attributed to adrenaline definitely, but not all. The pain he was constantly under hadn’t left him by a long shot, but it had lessened a bit. Law could feel the poison killing him just as before, but the Ope Ope No Mi had given him at the very least a few more precious days. And within those days he had to learn to use his power.

If he didn’t he would obviously die. But most likely so would Cora-san. Cora-san had gone against orders and broken several laws to save Law. The marines wouldn’t be happy. If he couldn’t show so much as the person who had eaten the precious five billion beli fruit, Cora-san would probably end up being executed.

Law took a deep breath and tried to empty out his mind of these dark thoughts. Sadly that had never been his specialty, he was more of an expert on wallowing in said thoughts.

Concentration had been impossible before, with fearing for Cora-san’s and his own life and constantly being on edge. Now though, he had a chance to relax a bit. Law could hear Cora-san breathing, and occasionally incoherently mumbling, in the bed next to him, so it was fair to say the man was okay for now. Law could also trust that if he were to fall asleep now, he’d still wake up to see tomorrow. The marines didn’t actively want him dead, after all. That meant that he could take a risk and direct all his concentration on activating his devil fruit’s powers.

Cora-san had never really explained how that worked, just said that it happened naturally after a while. That hadn’t sat well with Law’s scientific mind. Everything could be explained and described into notes if one just tried hard enough. There was no time for ‘after a while’ anyway. He’d already tried to call upon the power before and that’d done absolutely nothing. So it wasn’t something you could just make into being with words. Yet most people he’d seen with devil fruit powers tended to name their attacks. Some of them probably just did it to be dramatic but surely not all of them. So it was fair to deduct that naming and voicing one’s attack had some sort of benefit, Law would imagine it to be a mental one. Saying something out loud made it easier to imagine, that was why he’d never shied away from voicing his revenge fantasies out loud, after all.

But not everyone named their attacks, Cora-san didn’t. Which meant that even if voicing your attacks could have made them easier to create, it wasn’t strictly necessary. The real power of the devil fruits came from somewhere within.

Law tried to concentrate on finding the power inside him, tried to force it to do something but nothing happened at all. The problem was that he didn’t really know what he was trying to create. He had no idea what the ope ope no mi was supposed to do except be some sort of miraculous healing power.

Law rubbed his forehead tiredly. For clarity’s sake devil fruits are given names that reflect their nature. He’d read that once somewhere, while still in Flevance, when his interest in devil fruits was just a childish game.

Ope ope no mi. If the fruit’s power was to heal, then Ope probably referred to Operation. How appropriate considering Law had planned to become a surgeon when he grew up. The thought dragged another wry smile from the boy.

What did a surgeon do then? Incisions, operations, closing up the wounds. What did a surgeon need? Scalpels, anesthesia, stitches and needles. An operating room. That last thought resonated with Law for some reason. Even the most perfect surgery, performed by the most skilled surgeon could mean absolutely nothing if performed in unsanitary conditions, without correct tools. A surgeon was nothing without the proper surroundings.

Law stared at his empty hands, barely making out their outlines under the blankets. “A room,” he muttered, envisioning the sort of sterile white rooms he’d often seen doctors work at. To his surprise a small white light flickered to life on his right palm. It cut out almost as soon as it was created, but it was unmistakably the work of his devil fruit.

Incisions and stitches and anesthesia, all inside an operating room, he thought. He’d finally gotten an idea on how his power worked and if even half the ideas flying around his head were useable, he could become truly terrifying.

A smirk slowly grew on Law’s face. It wasn’t wry or self-deprecating like before, but it definitely had no place on such a young face. No child should have had an aura of such murderous glee.


	2. Chapter 2

  1. Chapter.



 

It was two days after Law first manifested his powers that the former officer of the Donquixote pirates was deemed in good enough condition to meet the vice admiral. No one asked Law to participate but no one forbid him either, at this point they’d all but given up on separating the boy from the man for longer than a bathroom break. He was especially present during Commander Donquixote’s health checkups and he’d apparently impressed quite a few of vice admiral Tsuru’s  doctors. It was clear the boy had some sort of medical background, even if it was still unclear where that background had come from exactly. 

“It seems you are well,” Tsuru began with the necessary small talk. 

Donquixote laughed weakly, propped up on several pillows and still looking very much like he’d been shot several times just a few days ago. “I guess you could say that.” The child, Trafalgar Law, glared at her. Oh how Tsuru hated small talk. 

“I’m sure you’re aware of what I’m here to discuss,” she stated, getting right to the point. Niceties really weren’t for her, she had no idea why she even kept trying after all these years. 

The man sighed and cast a concerned glance at Trafalgar. “The ope ope no mi, yes?” 

Tsuru nodded. “I’ve already been in contact with Sengoku. He has informed me on why he thinks you abandoned your mission and stole the Devil’s fruit right from under the World Government’s noses. The circumstances are certainly fit to pull at ones heartstrings but I have to wonder how much of it is Sengoku’s personal bias. That is why I’ve been instructed by my superiors to interrogate you.” 

The child was up in seconds, coming to stand in front of the much larger man in a fighting position, clearly intending to protect his ill-suited father figure. Tsuru might’ve found it adorable, if she’d had the patience for foolishness.  

“Sit down, Trafalgar Law,” she let just a little bit of her innate authority seep into her voice. The child looked torn between staying put and letting his feet give out from under him from the pressure, until the ex-commander took the choice out of his hands and led the boy to sit back down on the bed. 

“I say interrogation but I’m hardly about to use thumbscrews on a wounded marine. I intend to ask you questions and get honest answers. If the answers I get are less than honest I will be reporting that back. You two are already on very thin ice, I would not worsen the situation were I in your shoes.” 

Donquixote nodded seriously, but Tsuru had never really been worried about him. Unlike his abominable brother, the younger Donquixote had always been a horrible liar. That was why he’d had to pretend to be mute for so many years, after all. Instead she turned her eyes on the boy, who so clearly came from a tough life and whose eyes shone of violence and hatred. He was young and Tsuru had no doubt Trafalgar thought he could lie himself out of this. He did nod curtly but she could see there was no true intent behind it. 

That was usually why she was put to interrogate prisoners in the first place. People tended to open up easier to a grandmotherly figure and those who didn’t, thought it would be all too easy to lie to her. She did nothing to discourage these views, it did work in her favour after all. 

“In that case I would like you to start your story from the very beginning.” 

Donquixote nodded again and started his tale. “I left my brother’s crew some months ago, intending to-“ 

Tsuru lifted up her hand to silence the man. “That wasn’t what I meant by the beginning.” She once again turned her gaze on the child, too small and injured for what she had to ask of him. “Start with Flevance and the Amber Lead poisoning.” 

It was a topic even she had trouble finding information on, so well it had been hidden. But she was a tactician by nature, and a tactician needed all the information available. 

Predictably the boy bristled, vivid anger flashing in his eyes. His right hand was grabbling at air, Tsuru suspected he might’ve been reflexively seeking out a weapon. 

“What would you care about Flevance, you bitch? It’s you Government shitheads that burned it down in the first place!” 

“Law!” Donquixote gasped in alarm.  

It was unwise to anger a vice-admiral but Tsuru had never been so easily angered. If she had, she’d never been able to tolerate the idiocy of Garp or Sengoku, let alone both. And she wasn’t too self-obsessed to admit that the boy had a valid reason to be angry. What little she knew of Flevance fully suggested that the World Government had failed its mission there. 

“I told you this was an interrogation. If you are unwilling to answer my questions, I will have you step outside this room while I speak with your… while I speak with commander Donquixote. If you want to remain by his side, you will speak when you are so told.” Her words were cold, but her heart felt old. Bullying children had not been the reason she’d joined the marines, yet these were the sort of activities she’d regrettably often found herself doing since gaining the coveted seat of Vice-Admiral. Perhaps she should’ve become a washer lady in her youth after all, as some loud-mouths over the years had suggested.  

Trafalgar Law tried to hide the clenching of his teeth by lowering his head, and the shaking of his hands by tightening them into painful fists. Nevertheless, he began to speak after a while, apparently the threat of not being able to look after his guardian being worse than reliving a horrible past. 

The boy spoke of despair and the fear a slowly advancing disease had brought a medically advanced city. He spoke of quarantines and a growing panic, of ever-increasing pain and death all around. An ideal, happy family that fell ill one after another, parents still valiantly trying to help others and find a cure, only to die in front of the eyes of their oldest child. Of a little sister who died alone in a cupboard, either from smoke or from the flames devouring her body. He told of a boy who hid under a pile of his comrades’ bodies to escape dying in the hands of the Government that had bitterly betrayed them. It was a story told shortly and efficiently, with a voice bathed in never-ending hatred and with deceivingly dry eyes. It was a story that had been thought of many times over a period long enough, that sadness had melted into pain as the white spots had almost completely engulfed the miraculously still-living body of a 13-year old. 

Tsuru did not allow herself to show sadness or sympathy, she had not earned such rights, nor would they be appreciated. The hatred Trafalgar Law felt was not unfounded, but it was also not an emotion she could afford herself to feel. She had no foolish ideas of the Government being always just, but she did have a lifetime long conviction of the justice the World Government brought. She’d also lived long enough to understand what the world would look like without a guiding hand. The marines were needed, the World Government was needed but what the World Government needed was empathy and a kick to the balls. Tsuru was not in a position to offer either of those, so instead she enforced her ‘Clean Justice’ where she could, however she could. 

“I see,” she stated blandly, wishing vaguely that there had been something more intelligible to say. “I’ve heard the reports of after Trafalgar Law joined the Donquixote pirates, enlighten me on the parts I have not heard of, starting with your sudden vacation, commander.” 

The commander and vice-admiral both pretended they didn’t notice the way the exhausted boy leaned to his adopted father for comfort, or the way the older man gently wrapped his hand around his shoulders. She would gladly allow him any comfort he could find in this world but feared it would not last long. Not when her superiors were so very angry at Donquixote Rosinante, that a dishonorable discharge seemed like a mild punishment. And not when the fruit Trafalgar Law possessed was so very valuable. 

The Commander’s story corresponded with what Sengoku had already told her, and she saw no reason to doubt his words. That much was good, they’d been very co-operative so far and that might be able to save them some trouble later on. 

“And what has been your progress with the Ope Ope no mi?” she addressed the question to Trafalgar Law, who still looked haunted but already more collected. The boy was stronger than he should’ve had to be, too much practice in that one. 

The boy shrugged. “Not much to speak of. I just don’t know what I’m trying to do here. Don’t you have a book on how to use devil fruits or something?” 

He was lying and Tsuru didn’t even need to look at the subtle signs of his body language to be able to tell. Trafalgar only practiced his powers at night and under the covers, but the guard Tsuru had assigned to them was neither blind nor deaf. She’d gotten reports of steadily improving abilities, flickering flashes of light becoming more stable and quietly muttered words sounding more confident. The boy was still covered in white patches everywhere the clothes didn’t cover, but Tsuru was wondering if the healing process had already been started. 

“I shall see if we do. In the meantime, keep practicing, I know from experience that the only way to master one’s power is to train it,” she merely stated. There was no point to let the boy know he’d been caught in his lies. He would probably train harder this way, plotting their escape. “I think this’ll be enough for today. We reach Marineford in five days, so make sure to prepare yourselves.” 

 _And_ _in five days I’ll have to tell Sengoku_ _to his face that_ _I’ve arrested his kid_ _._


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notice how all the characters seem to call Cora-san differently? I think it's suits their personalities nicely. Also, do you think these chapters are too short? They look a lot longer as a word document, somehow.

  1. Chapter.



Rosinante leaned back on his bed, feeling thoroughly fed up with recuperating. He hadn’t sat still this long in years, as an officer of the Donquixote pirates he’d always had to be on top of his duties even while injured and as an active marine peace was a precious rare thing. How odd that the first time he had time to lay back long enough to grow bored was when he was a prisoner.

“How are you feeling Cora-san?” Law asked, the spitting image of a concerned mother hen. It really melted Rosinantes heart to see the boy so worried about him.

“I’m fine, Law. I was always a quick healer. By now I could run a marathon.”

“You could not! You wobble every time you walk; don’t think I haven’t seen that.”

Rosinante flinched. His acting skills needed work if he couldn’t convince a 13-year old. “Well, regardless I’m fine. The doctors tell me I won’t have any permanent damage and they seem very impressed with my recuperating speed.” Which was doubly good seeing as he’d been exaggerating his injuries to them a bit. Law of course knew that as well, but they couldn’t talk openly, since there was always a guard present. “And how are you?”

Thankfully Law hadn’t gotten any broken bones on the winter island and the multiple bruises he’d had, were starting to turn yellowish at the edges, a sure sign of healing.  What Rosinante was most worried about was Law’s mental condition. He’d become more closed up than ever since they’d been rescued and being on a marine warship definitely wasn’t helping. And as much as Rosinante loved the fact that Law felt he could depend on the man, the clinginess was starting to worry him. It seemed like since Law had witnessed Rosinante almost die, he now didn’t dare to leave the man out of his sight for any period of time. Rosinante was supposed to be the parent here, he didn’t want Law to worry about  _him_.

The boy scoffed. “I’d be a lot better without all the fucking marines around.”

“Language, Law,” Rosinante scolded gently. Law scoffed again. “How about your devil fruit powers, any progress?”

Law scrunched up his face in frustration. “I wish everyone’d stop asking that. I’ll tell you when I make progress.” His acting had really started to get better, Rosinante marked with pride. 

It didn’t fool him any more than it fooled Tsuru-san, though the only one who didn’t know that was Law himself. 

Being brought up by Sengoku, Rosinante had gotten a good look at the kind of person Vice-Admiral Tsuru was. Although she had an aura of authority and her justice was unshakable, she could be rather soft at times. Proof of that was the fact that her entire crew consisted of women. Because of that many marines thought that Tsuru-san hated men or simply favored women given the opportunity, but Rosinante had learned that that was incorrect. Tsuru-san didn’t give her subordinates any slack and treated them no different from all the male marines, she was absolutely merciless in their training. The reason she’d collected them was because she detested the way the navy tended to treat its female soldiers, having witnessed it firsthand. 

 _Too often we’re treated like some fragile, weak creatures that_ _have kindness coming out our rears_ , he’d once heard Tsuru complain to Sengoku while they were both tipsy and rewinding in his office after a very long week.  _Hell, you know how many times someone’s suggested to me I should stay away from the battlefield when the going gets rough? Makes me want to kick those brats back to the womb. And the worst part is some of the w_ _omen start to believe that crap, that’s why most of your officers can’t get them to reach their full potential. It’s_ _just wasting our_ _resources, that’s what it is. Stop laughing_ _, Sengoku_ _you idiot_ _,_ _or I’ll string you up and hang you out to dry!_

Yes, he’d seen her kinder side in the way her eyes had softened when Law was telling the story of Flevance and her body language had betrayed genuine concern towards Rosinante when she first saw him so severely wounded. But that would never prevent her from carrying out her duties. In that way the three friends, Sengoku-san, Tsuru-san and Garp-san were very similar: their justice always came first. If him and Law got very lucky Tsuru-san might pretend not to notice small signs of rebellion, but even that was pushing it.

But escape they had to. He wasn’t worried about what would happen to him when they got back to Marineford, Sengoku-san wouldn’t let him be executed nor sent to Impel Down, and while house arrest would be restricting and humiliating, he could live with it. Law on the other hand, couldn’t. He’d be held captive and guarded jealously, the World Government would want to turn him into a loyal marine and when that would inevitably fail, they’d settle with manipulating him into being their pawn, probably by threatening Rosinante. That wasn’t a life Law could take without breaking. He wasn’t quite as angry as he used to anymore, but he wouldn’t be above stabbing someone if provoked sufficiently. And once the Government realized how violent Law was, the situation would only escalate further. In the absolute worst case scenario, they would eventually deem Law a bigger risk than gain and execute him.

That’s why Rosinante had decided that even though it made them into criminals, he and Law had to run. 

The problem was on how to do it. The obvious option was to employ Law’s devil fruit powers but Rosinante didn’t actually know what they could do or how much control Law had over them. They really needed to have a talk for Rosinante to form a real plan.

He looked down at his hands. He didn’t know whether he’d been left uncuffed as an act of kindness or because the marines just didn’t think his devil fruit powers to be very threatening, but he didn’t really care either way. Having people look down on his powers was a blessing. People always seemed to be only thinking of the battle applications of an ability, and not for example how very convenient the power of silence was to a spy. A fact that wasn’t widely known was that Rosinante had known exactly what ability his devil fruit contained when he’d eaten it. Honestly, he’d been ecstatic to find such a useful power.

But to have a conversation with Law, they still needed a distraction, if only a visual one. Rosinante casually lit up a cigarette. 

Commander Rosinante Donquixote was naturally a very clumsy man, this much was true. But he was also a very accomplished actor and it wasn’t difficult at all to act as if the act of lighting his sheets on fire had been entirely accidental. Not when everyone knew how often this sort of thing happened to him.

Their personal guard ran into action cursing, hurrying to put out the fire while Law forcefully dragged him off the bed. Immediately when her back was turned Rosinante put up a sound proof bubble. They had a few minutes at best.

“What were you thi-“ Law began on an angry rant but Rosinante interrupted him.

“What can you do with your powers? She can’t hear us.”

Laws eyes darted from the guard and the fire back to him and he caught on quick, because he was such a smart, adorable kid.

“I can- I can cut things and it doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t matter if it’s surgery or amputation I can do it and close up the wound or reattach the limbs however I want. I can even cut off the head without the patient dying.” Rosinante wanted desperately to ask how on earth they boy had tested that, but there was no  _time_.

“I can also teleport objects within my ‘room’ but I’m not sure how big I can make the room. If there’s more I haven’t found out about it yet.”

“How big objects?” Rosinante asked hastily, the fire was almost out.

“I’ve been testing with hats. I don’t know more than-“

The man nodded and lifted his hand to interrupt the boy by ruffling his hair. “We’ll talk more later.” He dropped his bubble, and a few seconds later the incensed marine turned to face them.

“What were you thinking you idiot! You’re not even supposed to smoke you know, you literally  _just_  had lifesaving surgery a few days ago.”

“I keep telling him that”, Law joined in, for once finding common ground with a marine for the purpose of scolding Rosinante. “But Cora-san refuses to listen, because he’s a dumbass.”

“Well that’s not very nice,” the man frowned.

“You know what’s not nice, Donquixote? Burning down my ship. I will skin you alive, I swear to you,” the woman growled. Law’s face darkened again, and he was about to either try to attack the guard or insult her, before Rosinante lifted up his hands in surrender.

“Fine, fine. You two’ve got me. I won’t light the bed on fire again.”

“Or yourself!” Law barked.

“I promise nothing.”

“Oi!”

Rosinante processed the bickering with only half a brain, the other half focusing on the new information. Teleportation was obviously the most potently useful one of the abilities. It was impossible to tell how useful it would be in practice though. Law couldn’t test it with humans at the moment and even if it would be capable of teleporting humans there was a real possibility that Law couldn’t actually teleport himself. Still, even just small objects could be very useful. They’d have to test Law’s accuracy and range as best they could. 

Law’s powers seemed like they would be very good at creating distraction and mayhem when they escaped but Rosinante was reluctant to cause permanent damage to his fellow marines, especially something as gruesome as severing limbs. Law had said that he’d had no problems reattaching the limbs again, but it was possible only he could do that, or that once the victim was out of his immediate zone, all changes to the body would be permanent and/or fatal. There just wasn’t enough information to make an ideal plan.

Rosinante took a deep breath and steeled himself. He would do what he’d have to, he’d already sacrificed a lot for his boy, and he was willing to sacrifice a whole lot more. His morals had gone down the drain a long time ago, maybe it was time for his principles to follow.


	4. Chapter 4

  1. Chapter



 

Over the course of the next two days Cora-san got them several chances to talk and for Law to test his abilities. 

Law had to admit to himself, that he was kind of shocked. He’d always thought of Cora-san as a kind, but ultimately a rather simple man. He’d wondered a few times how the man had even managed to make it alive so long as a spy. As it turned out, Cora-san had an unexpected scheming side. 

“We reach Marineford in three days. That means we’ll have to make our escape tomorrow evening, before we get too deep into marine territory,” Cora-san told Law. They were alone because Law had insisted to the guard to do a health checkup on Cora-san, since he didn’t trust the navy doctors (which was absolutely true). Cora-san had then thrown a big scene about how he was way too embarrassed to undress for a checkup in front of a female marine. The guard had irritably explained that not only had she been present all the other times he’d had a checkup done, all the doctors on the ship were women too. Cora-sans face twisted in absolute mortification at that, like he’d never even realized (and to be honest, Law wasn’t sure he had). The guard had given a long-suffering sigh and promised to give them fifteen minutes, during which she’d be waiting just outside the door, so don’t try anything.  

“I know the route we’re taking and if my estimations are right, this should work well for us. We’ll be passing by a summer island tomorrow that’s a popular stop for pirates on their way to the Grand Line. If we made our way there, we wouldn’t be exactly safe from the marines but it’d be a hell of a lot more difficult for them to get to us. Of course since it is a pirate hotspot, chances of running into someone who’s connected to my brother would be a lot higher, but we really can’t afford to be too picky right now.” 

Law was listening while examining Cora-san, because he really did want to make sure the man was fit to try an escape before they actually tried it. He was still too weak for anything more strenuous than a light walk, but in their plan it would be Law doing most of the heavy lifting anyway. 

Law wasn’t exactly happy at the thought of potentially being noticed by Doflamingo again, but they really didn’t have options. 

“The marines will still come straight for the island, full of pirates or not, since they want my devil fruits power. Besides, they have a battleship and a vice admiral, I hardly think your average pirates are going to put up much of a fight. They’re more likely to flee at the first sight of the ship,” Law countered. 

Cora-san flashed a wide grin, not a goofy one like before on Minion island, but a one that looked just as foreign on his features: a devious smirk. 

“I said  _if_  we went to the summer island. It’s a very obvious plan, one we would clearly make. Sure, there’s a slight chance we could escape but it’s not a chance I’d be actually willing to bank on.” 

“So, you just want to make the marines think we went to the summer island?” Law caught on quickly. “Then where are we actually going?” 

Cora-san pulled out a copy of a map, that Law had teleported to them last night. Testing his abilities, he’d quickly found out that he’d had to either have been to the place where he was teleporting things from, or he had to have a very good idea of where the place and desired object were exactly. It also couldn’t be farther than about twenty meters. Luckily for them, all navy battleships were built the same way and Cora-san had a very good idea of where sea maps would be kept in the war room.  

Even still Law had accidentally teleported the wrong object several times before getting the right one. That’s why they’d had to work in the middle of the night, while mostly everyone was asleep, and their guard finally thought they were asleep and took a bathroom break. It really wasn’t a good idea to keep the same person on continuous watch for seven hours. 

“Here,” he said, pointing to a miniscule island way on the other side of the map. “It’s not a well-known place, nor does anyone of interest care about it. It’s mainly inhabited by villagers and low-level merchants, its most defining feature being the adventurous fishermen that sometimes make trips all the way to East Blue to make trade.” 

Law took a moment to organize his questions better, forehead burrowed in thought. For some reason Cora-san was crooning at the sight, but he was ignoring that for now. 

“How will we get to that island on just the lifeboat we’re planning to steal? And why do we want to get to the East Blue?” He also wanted to ask how Cora-san even knew so much about a supposedly unimportant island, but he was pretty sure the man would just respond with ‘spies have to know these things, you know’ and he was tired of hearing that answer. 

“That would be the difficult part, since this is no short journey. But it’s also entirely unexpected, no one has reason to suspect that that’s where we’re aiming for, so our route should be a secret, provided we stay low. We will probably need to stop a few times, get a better boat if possible, but even a lifeboat will work in an emergency. Honestly this is the best we can plan it, we’re going to have to wing it a lot of the times, but I’m confident at my improvisational skills. As for why the East Blue,” Cora-san said spreading out his arms in a wide shrug. “It’s the weakest sea with the weakest marine presence, and Doffy would have no reason to suspect that that’s where we are. It’s as good a place as any, I suppose.” 

Law sighed and finished his examination. Cora-san would be in good enough condition to manage. It figured their escape was heavily based on good luck and improvisation; he’d really been giving the man’s intelligence too much credit. Not that Law could make a better plan right now, but he wasn’t about to volunteer that fact. 

They still had a few minutes before the guard would unavoidably return, so they used the time to go through their more detailed escape plan once again. 

 

\------------------------------------------------------------ 

 

The following day they began action. The first thing Law needed to do was map out the lifeboat they were using and checking it for rations. This wasn’t too difficult, if everything went well. It’d be extremely suspicious if he just started wandering around the ship all of a sudden, having been stuck to Cora-sans side for days. It wasn’t however, too strange for him to take a longer route to the bathroom, brushing by the lifeboats to check their location and making it look like he just wanted a breath of fresh air. Once he got to the bathroom, came the harder part. 

Law had practiced teleportation successfully for a while now, but always with relatively small objects, and even then, it exhausted him. This time he had to teleport himself. It took a few frustrated tries and Law had to forcibly squash down rising panic, and visualize his desired destination very carefully, before he found himself sitting in a lifeboat at the side of a marine ship. 

It was actually a very nice boat, meant for the higher officers of the ship in case of an emergency. It was big enough to have a small cabin area with a single bed and a shelf full of supplies. The outside had a mast with a furled sail. Unfurled the sail would have the marine seagull on it, they’d have to cover that up first chance they got, otherwise they’d be instantly recognized. Law didn’t know much about ships, but he figured this one would be sturdy enough to get them to their destination, or at least close enough, so he teleported back to the bathroom. 

Now he had to procure them some money and cause a diversion before teleporting himself and Cora-san to the boat. Cora-san had only mentioned the diversion part, but Law knew they were going to need the money and stealing it later would just bring them attention on their escape. He figured, with his skills the risk would be relatively low. 

He returned to their room feeling tired already. They’d have until dinnertime before making their escape attempt, so Law had time to rest. Cora-san shot a questioning look towards him, Law just gave a subtle nod back. The mission had been successful.  

He went back to his bed, ready to take a nap. 

“Tired already?” the guard questioned amused. “Didn’t you just wake up?” 

“I’m not tired,” Law shot back with a glare. “I’m just bored out of my mind here. What else do I have to do other than sleep?” 

“Well there’s always cleaning to be done on the ship. We wouldn’t mind you working for your keep for once, you know,” she said it in a joking manner, but Law felt his anger rising nonetheless. 

“If we’re a bother you could always drop us off at the next island.” He practically growled the words, but the guard just laughed jovially. 

“I’m sure you’d like that. Just forget I said anything and go back to your nap, you look like you need the sleep.” 

Law balled his hands to fists and stared at the guard through a rising haze of rage. “No. It’s fine. I’ll clean for my upkeep, after all that’s a completely reasonable expectation for a prisoner.” 

The woman was looking slightly more uncomfortable now and Cora-san tried to interject. 

“Law, it’s fine, just- “ 

“No. She said I should clean so let’s go then, I’ll clean the whole fucking ship spotless. It’s just like the marines to use child labor, isn’t it,” Law spat out disgusted. 

The guard looked really awkward now. “Um, I really didn’t mean much by that, it was just a…” She was unable to finish the sentence, staring into Law’s eyes. Instead she scratched her head embarrassed. “I guess I could take you to vice admiral Tsuru, see if there’s anything you could help with?” 

Law was already storming to the door. The only problem was that now that he’d won the argument, his head was starting to clear, and he was left wondering  _what the fuck was he doing?_  

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

 

Rosinante looked at the empty room and sighed. He really shouldn’t have been too surprised that Law’s temperament had gotten the better of him. He was still pretty confident that he could get the plan back on track before nightfall, though.  

Basically, all they had to do was wait until dinner to cause enough smalltime confusion that the marines who weren’t at the mess hall wouldn’t be paying attention to their escape. They also had to get rid of their guard somehow. 

Well, nothing he could do about it now. Rosinante laid back and got ready to take a short nap. He had to get his strength up for the evening after all.  

A slight chuckle escaped him when he thought of how Law would scold him for such carelessness. The amusing thought followed him to his sleep, and he dreamt of angry, tiny doctors. 

Rosinante woke up with a jolt, there was a quickly silenced scream near him. He woke up to see Law muffling the decapitated head of their guard with a pillow.  _Well that escalated faster than expected_ , Rosinante thought unamused. 

Law looked up at him with guilt and worry. “We need to leave, now.” Suddenly the head stopped struggling and Law lifted the pillow, quickly checking whether she was still alive. The boy heaved a sigh of relief, and Rosinante was glad that the guard would be fine, and that Law could still care about the life of a marine. 

“What happened?” 

Law cringed. “I’ll tell you later, right now we need to go before someone finds them and lets the Vice Admiral know.” 

Looking at their guard’s scattered body parts Rosinante thought he had a fairly good idea of what had happened to whoever ‘they’ were, and he did not envy them. 

Instead of questioning the boy further and wasting their time he struggled out of bed and simply asked. “Will the damage be permanent?” 

Law came to help him up, despite only being able to reach him to around the waist and shrugged. “Not if anyone on this ship is any good with jigsaw puzzles. And possibly hide and seek.” 

Rosinante left it at that. 

The pair limped their way through the strangely empty hallways, Rosinante putting as much weight on Law as he dared. The boy was already stronger than he’d been a few days ago, Rosinante suspected he’d gotten good headway into healing his amber lead poisoning. Had the man not been so focused on walking, he would’ve been much more curious on why they hadn’t yet encountered anyone on their way. Surely not everyone was eating dinner at the same time? 

They made it to the lifeboat and Law had to basically topple Rosinante into it, since the man couldn’t climb in himself. Rosinante took a few heartbeats to breathe through the pain exploding in his body, before he noticed his surroundings with rapidly blinking eyes. 

“ _Where did all this gold come from?_ ” he asked with a high-pitched voice, his heart beating in his throat. 

Law jumped next to him on the boat, agilely like a fox and shrugged again. “I’ll tell you later.” Then he got to work untying the ropes keeping them fastened to the side of the marine ship. In minutes they were free and falling towards the awaiting ocean. 

Law unfurled their sail and Rosinante took over the steering, a lucky headwind guaranteed they made decent headway away from the battleship. It was then that Law stumbled on his feet, looking more exhausted than he had since Minion Island. Using his abilities so much in such quick succession had left him barely functioning. 

Rosinante patted the boys head affectionately.  

“You should take a nap now, Law. When you wake up, we’ll be far away from here and truly free men.” 

Law looked up (and up and up) at the tall man, dark eyes full of childish wonder that Rosinante had barely ever seen on the kid. Then he smiled, shyly, as though someone could steal away his happiness if he flaunted it too much. 

“Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, the boys are free!  
> Next chapter the kiddos meet.
> 
> That being said, I won't be posting for the next few days because I'll be going away for new years, but I should have a new chapter up either Tuesday or Wednesday. It's just as well, because I only have a few more pre-made chapters left, then you'll have to get used to a lot slower updating pace.
> 
> Also, do you think swearing suits Law's character? I'm divided, I didn't really intend for it to happen but he seems to be forcing my hand. Also x2, would you like to know what Law did in that little timeskip I left to your imaginations? I only have a vague idea, but I might incorporate it into the story if I find a place where a flashback would work.


	5. Chapter 5

  1. Chapter



 

Ace and Sabo were watching from the trees as the two strangers hiked their way through the forest. They could tell the pair were new, for one because Ace would remember seeing the giant anywhere in town. For second, because everyone from Gray Terminal knew that this part of the forest was  _their_  turf. 

Granted the strangers weren’t anywhere near the hidden treasure, but it still wasn’t a good idea to let them wander around as they liked. 

Ace and Sabo hopped out of their hiding place, almost simultaneously landing in front of the giant and the brat. (Even if the kid did look like he might've been slightly older than them.) 

“In the name of being fair I have to give you two a chance to turn back here. This isn’t a good area to be wandering in,” Sabo stated to the strangers, all sharp smiles and superficial politeness. Most residents of the area would’ve been able to recognize the words for the threat they were, and the kid was giving them a sharp glare, but the giant seemed completely oblivious, just smiling a big dumb smile. 

“You mean because of the mountain bandits, right? We’ve already heard about them and there’s no need to worry. We’re not here to cause trouble, just passing through, looking for a clearing to camp in for the night.” 

Sabo let his smile fall into an icy stare and gripped the pipe in his hands harder. “No. I don’t mean because of the bandits.” 

That was all the warning the strangers got before Ace and Sabo leapt to attack them, both of them aiming for the giant. After all, neither of them was too keen on hitting what was probably a defenseless child. 

They were just going to give the tourists a mild beating to scare them away, the strangers didn’t seem too dangerous so there was no need for more drastic measures. 

Ace and Sabo were surprised when the kid jumped in front of the giant defensively. He looked about to say something. 

“Roo-“ 

The giant slapped his hand on the glaring kids’ mouth before he could finish his sentence. 

“Law, don’t! They’re just childre – ah!” His words were interrupted by two pipes connecting.  

The kid’s – Laws? – eyes darkened, and he shook off the offending hand before raising his own right one in a palm down gesture. 

“Room. Shambles.” 

The first thing Sabo noticed was that they were all surrounded in a blue light. After that he had a strange moment of disorientation where he thought he could see body parts clad in his clothes flying around. The sight was so sudden and unexpected, not to mention painless, that his brain was convincing him that his eyes were seeing wrong. That was, until Ace started screaming. 

“What the hell? What is this? What did you do to Sabo?” 

Sabo shifted his eyes (since his head was refusing to move properly, how strange) and was met with his best friend’s decapitated head floating in the air. He let out a frightened scream before he could control himself. 

“Law!” the giant called out, rubbing his shoulder and side where they’d been hit and sounding irritated. “Put them back together now.” 

The kid kept his eyes on the dismembered pair, face dispassionate, almost bored but eyes betraying his anger. 

“Why shoud I? They attacked us first, and we didn’t even do anything to them.” 

The giant sighed. “Law, they’re just kids. And you’re not supposed to use your powers anyway.” 

A sadistic smirk rose to Law’s face. “Well, now they’ve seen me use them. Should I kill them before they can tell anyone?” 

The boys both tensed. Sabo could still feel his right hand squeezing tightly onto the pipe, but right now he couldn’t do anything but flail helplessly, not even the slightest bit in control of himself. 

As always, Ace reacted first. 

“Hey asshole, who do you think you’re going to kill?! This whole thing was my idea, so leave Sabo out of it, you dickbag.” 

Sabo flinched. Of course, Ace was defending him with little concern for his own self. It hurt him deep inside how little Ace cared about his own life, but he pushed the feeling aside for now. It was up to him to get them out of this alive. 

“There’s no need to kill anyone, really,” he lied smoothly, a convincing smile worming its way back to his face. “We don’t care who you are or what you’re doing here, and we certainly have no one to tell it to. I mean, we live in the forest, clearly we have no parents to tattle to.” The giants’ eyes narrowed at his words and Sabo gulped before continuing even faster. “It was wrong of us to attack you, okay? We just thought you would’ve tried to hurt us if we didn’t do it first. We definitely won’t try this again.” 

Sabo was well aware that Ace was seething next to him, rage almost boiling over. He was just praying that Ace could keep quiet just a little longer. He was also so very grateful that Luffy wasn’t here. Sabo hated groveling like this, but it didn’t matter; they needed to survive more than he needed his pride. 

“And why would we have tried to hurt you?” the giant asked, his voice strangely gentle now. Sabo wondered if he was one of those types that liked to play sweet just until the moment he cut his victims’ throat open. Sabo hated those types the most. If you were going to murder someone, at least be honest about it. 

“Um, because that’s usually how things work around here?” he said as calmly as he could, wondering if it was the right answer. 

“How old are you two?” the giant questioned, voice laced with fake concern. 

Ace’s last ounce of patience burnt out. “And what the hell’s it to you, huh? Stop asking stupid shit and just kill us if you’re going to do it!” 

“Ace, no! Think of Luffy,” Sabo hissed as loudly as he dared, just enough to be heard by Ace and hopefully no one else. That got his dark-haired friend to shut his mouth with a snap. If they died here, Luffy would be all alone in the world. The gramps and Dadan were shit parents and no one knew that better than Ace. 

As quietly as Sabo had tried to give the admonishment, it still seemed the giant heard him. The look on his face now was unquestionably sad, though Sabo suspected it was mainly an act. 

“Law, put them back to normal. Please.” 

“Tch.” was all the kid said, but he averted his eyes from his captives and soon the body parts were flying with purpose again, back to their original places. 

“I’m keeping the room up though, so don’t try to run or I’ll just cut you up again,” Law stated darkly, and Sabo abandoned ideas of immediately running away. They needed to wait for their chance of escape, and he was confident Ace understood that too. Ace only got stupid when the situation was desperately out of control, or someone mentioned his dad. This they could handle, now that they both had working limbs again. 

Both boys stared up at the invaders, eyes full of hostility and no small amount of fear. The giant cleared his throat awkwardly. 

“I’m Rosinante, this is Law.” 

Law scoffed, keeping a sharp eye on the younger boys. Neither of them offered introductions. 

“Is there anything I can call you two?” Rosinante the giant coaxed with an encouraging smile. Neither boy said anything, dark glares shooting from one enemy to the other. 

“The dark-haired brat was called Ace, I didn’t catch a name for the other one, but I guess Coward would be accurate”, Law stated with that cruel smirk playing on his face again. 

Sabo flinched and tried not to let the words get to him. He wouldn’t have lowered himself to practically begging for mercy for anything other than their lives. 

“Shut up! He’s no coward”, Ace growled and for a moment Sabo was afraid he might try to lunge at Law again.  

“Of course not,” Rosinante said placatingly. “It’s not cowardice to try to keep onto your life. And we’re not going to kill you, just so you know. I apologize for Law’s ill-timed joke.” 

One look at the boy told Sabo that his words hadn’t been a joke. He didn’t know what kind of person Rosinante actually was or how much of his apparent kindness they could trust, but he could already tell that Law would’ve killed them without a thought if he thought that was necessary. 

“Right,” Sabo said stiffly. “Then we can go right? We already promised not to tell anyone about you.” 

He was surprised when Law nodded. “Sure. Just know that if you break your promise, I’ll hunt you down and kill you both, that Luffy too, whoever he is.” 

“Law!” Rosinante hissed. 

“It’s none of our business what they’re doing here Cora-san. We’ve got our own issues to worry about.” The kid’s voice was even and dark. Sabo didn’t get the feeling he was lying to them, which was good. They had no reason to tell anyone about the strangers, after all. It was probably best to keep this even from Luffy for the time being. 

The blue light dropped, and Ace and Sabo were both immediately running, in the same direction at first before splitting up and taking long twisting routes to lose any possible trackers in the precarious jungle. No matter how strong they were, if they weren’t familiar with the terrain, no one kept up with Ace and Sabo on their home turf. 

They met up again, close to the tree house and completely out of breath. 

“What… the fuck was that?” Ace questioned, anger and shock lacing his words and his expression. 

“It… must’ve been a devil fruit power. What else?” Sabo got out between pants of breath. 

“What the  _fuck_?” was the dark-haired boy’s next question. Sabo agreed whole-heartedly, even though he didn’t have an answer. 

“We’ll have to be more careful for the next few days. Keep an eye out especially when we’re with Luffy. We can’t run into them again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I kept reading this and re-reading it, then editing it and coming back to edit it a bit more. I'm still not sure I'm entirely happy with it but at some point you just have to put your hands up and ask for a second opinion. What do you guys think? Did this feel natural to you, was something off to you?
> 
> As for the timeline: the ASL brothers have been friends for a bit now but they haven't become brothers yet. Sabo also hasn't met Garp yet. I've been re-reading the manga and re-watching the anime to keep my timelines in order but if I get some things messed up, please tell me.
> 
> Happy new year, guys!


	6. Chapter 6

  1. Chapter



Law was annoyed, though that was nothing new.  Cora-san was actually  _angry_  about the way he’d treated the brats. The kids had attacked them for god’s sake! And they’d been no weaklings either, if they’d managed to hurt Cora-san. Defending themselves was just common sense.

“They were just kids!” the man stated again, as if Law hadn’t understood that the first twenty times he’d said it.

“They had weapons,” Law countered, treating the man’s bruises in the side and shoulder. The bruise left by the dark-haired brat was looking especially bad. How did an East Blue child have so much strength? They hadn’t encountered many people strong enough to be considered threats since leaving North Blue. Though to be fair, they had been actively avoiding any trouble.

They’d been in East Blue for a few months now, the actual journey from North Blue having taken them almost a year. Getting to the small island in the North Blue had been more difficult than they’d been hoping for, and had taken a considerable amount of time, with too many close calls from their many pursuers. Then when they’d finally arrived, they’d learned that the fishermen weren’t leaving for another expedition for a month and a half. It’d been difficult explaining why they wanted to accompany the fishermen so badly or why they were so very careful about being noticed by people. Copious amounts of money had shut up those lines of questioning pretty quickly.

During that time ever since their escape, Law and Cora-san had learned to fade into the background and not attract attention. Although Law had to admit that Cora-san seemed to be eerily proficient in both skills considering he was a three-meter tall blond giant with face tattoos. Apparently, he hadn’t been trusted with the title of spy for nothing. Neither of them used their powers whenever they could avoid it, and they even avoided using each other's names in public.

But it felt wrong to go too long without using his devils fruit powers. It made him feel itchy and impatient, more so than usual. It had been the combination of that and the fact that the kids were targeting Cora-san that had gotten him to use his abilities. It wasn’t an excuse though, any slip up could cause their re-capture and possible death, and Law refused to be the reason for that. He’d silence any witnesses he had to, be they children or not.

“I’m not sorry,” Law said stubbornly, letting Cora-san see the truth of it in his eyes.

The man sighed in a way that made Law hurt inside. Cora-san was sad for him again, and Law couldn’t really do anything about it. He wasn’t wrong on this and he knew it.

“They looked so scared and small, Law. Did you really feel no pity for them? Would you actually have hurt them if I hadn’t asked you not to?”

Law averted his eyes. He’d felt guilt for threatening the two when the blond one mentioned their friend called Luffy. Before that the dark-haired one had been full of anger and violent intent, just daring Law to go through with his threats. After that he’d briefly looked very, very scared for some reason, and Law had felt in a rare moment that he could relate. They were trying to protect someone.

Law pushed the unpleasant feelings away and rather clung onto a much more familiar one; anger.

“Oh, shut up! You go on and on about them, should I have just let them kill you just because they’re kids? Is almost getting murdered by children your thing or something?” Law let the unexpected sliver of jealousy slip into his words and amplify his anger. The thought of Cora-san throwing his life away for just about any kid that crossed his path, made him furious. If the man had met these two before him, would Law ever even have met him? Was he just the first pity project that happened Cora-san’s way?

Cora-san grabbed him into a bear hug, squeezing so hard that Law almost felt his eyes bulge. He grumbled and made his token protests but didn’t actually try to struggle out of the hug. It always helped when his irrational fears surfaced. Cora-san cared for him, had cared enough to put his life on the line, something he hadn’t done for any of the other kids in Doflamingo’s care. Maybe it had been pity at the start but it couldn’t have been that anymore, not with how warm and caring the man was still even after Law had recovered from the amber lead poisoning.

“Thank you for saving me again, Law,” Cora-san murmured gently, surprising the boy completely. “I’m not just worried about those boys here, I’m mainly worried about you. You’re just fourteen; you’re not supposed to be threatening to kill people anymore. I don’t want you to have a need for those kinds of actions. I suppose I’m just wishing the world could have shown you a kinder face.”

Law didn’t say anything to that, there was nothing to be said. They both knew that he’d seen way too much and met too many ugly people to believe that kindness got you anywhere if you wanted to survive. He let the hug linger on a bit longer than usual before breaking it, he felt like they both needed it.

“Well, we should probably try to find real shelter now. This doesn’t really work for the night,” the boy said, trying to brush away a small wave of embarrassment with familiar practicality. 

They’d stopped their trek under the branches of some big trees, after Cora-san finally failed to disguise the discomfort of his bruises from Law. Now that the injuries were tended to (as best they could be with the pitiful medical supplies Law had with him), it was time to get back to their original goal; finding a relatively safe place to sleep in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short little transitional chapter to explain what Cora-san and Law were up to after their escape. Tomorrow we get to finally see Luffy!
> 
> Also, thank you for all the nice comments!


	7. Chapter 7

  1. Chapter



It was a few days after the run-in with the strangers, and Ace still couldn’t relax. The intruders were still bumbling about the forest, as he and Sabo had accidentally spotted them just yesterday, before retreating very quickly. They were also getting closer to the hidden treasure and that meant Ace, Sabo and Luffy might have to abandon it completely, but they were all reluctant to do that.

“Why aren’t we going hunting again?” Luffy whined, hanging off the branch of their makeshift hideout. This was the second day they hadn’t gone hunting and that meant they hadn’t been eating nearly as much as normally. And of course, they couldn’t explain the reasons to Luffy, because if the boy learned of a threat lurking around their forest, he’d probably try to wrestle it to get stronger. Honestly, Luffy had the self-preservation sense of a coconut. 

“Because I said so!” Ace barked. “So quiet down or go back to Dadan.” That shut Luffy up immediately, as it always did.

And that was the other reason they hadn’t wanted to tell Luffy about the intruders. Because then they’d also have to tell him that they’d lost miserably. The kid worshipped them, neither Ace nor Sabo wanted to be the one to tell him that they weren’t invincible. Ace was especially reluctant to let Luffy know about any more of his weaknesses. How long would he and Sabo really want to keep sticking around if Ace kept messing up? He already knew he wasn’t good company.

“We could go fishing, I guess,” Sabo mended, the nicer one of them as always, and Luffy enthusiastically agreed. Sabo was probably Luffy’s favorite. 

Ace’s depressing thoughts came to a halt when he heard a rustling noise approaching them. Sabo’s worried eyes met his; he’d clearly heard the same thing.

“Maybe it’s just the bandits?” he asked hopefully.

“When have the bandits ever come looking for us?” Ace answered darkly.

“What? What is it?” Luffy asked, bouncing around excitedly with no sense of danger whatsoever.

“Shh!” Both older boys exclaimed at the same time and slapped a hand on the younger one’s mouth just as the bushes below broke to reveal two people, and a conversation could be heard.

“- told you we’re not going to find anything better here,” the smaller one said sulkily.

“Well, we’re not staying in there another night. Did you see the tigers, they were huge! No one could live there, Law,” the much bigger man exclaimed.

“I could handle the tigers, it’d be like training.”

“That’s not training you crazy kid, that’s suicide!”

The duo hadn’t noticed them up in the tree yet because of their bickering, but eventually they were going to look up. And if Law noticed them, they were definitely getting murdered.

“We need to go!” Sabo hissed, so quietly that Ace could barely make out the words.

Ace weighed the situation in his head. No matter how quietly they tried to escape, one of the two were going to notice them. But Sabo and Luffy were fast in this terrain, if they could just get a distraction, they could make it outside Law’s blue sphere. 

Ace couldn’t let the only people who’d ever cared for him be killed.

“I won’t run from a fight. You take Luffy and go, I’ll meet you back at Dadan’s.” Ace didn’t leave any room for arguing; he grabbed his pipe and jumped down before anyone could stop him. He felt safe knowing Sabo would do his all to protect Luffy, he was always better at that stuff.

This time Ace wasn’t messing around, nor was he feeling merciful, so he lunged straight for Law. If he could just be fast enough, he might be able to knock the boy unconscious before he had a chance to use his devil fruit powers. A swing from his pipe sent Law flying; it seemed that without his powers Law wasn’t all that strong.

Ace readied himself for another attack when the giant man swung into action. He was much quicker than Ace was anticipating from someone his size; the man was easily dodging most of his attacks and enduring the ones he couldn’t dodge almost effortlessly. In just a few seconds the fight was falling out of Ace’s favor, his loss was finally decided when the man grabbed his pipe midair with one hand and the back of Ace’s head with the other. The next thing he realized was that his face was being pressed against the ground and his arms were locked behind his back, making struggling completely useless. He tried anyway, a string of curses pouring out of his mouth. 

He’d been ready to fight Law, he hadn’t even considered the other man a real threat. Most big guys just thought that being tall was the same as being strong, after all, and so didn’t bother accumulating any actual skills in fighting. 

Was he going to die?

“Let go of Ace!”

The yell froze the blood in Ace’s veins; it was Luffy. Luffy slingshotted against the giant man, causing him to become off-balance enough that Ace could struggle out of the arm lock and leap back onto his feet. As he was getting up, he caught a glimpse of Sabo running past them to where Law was just recovering from being hit. Law saw Sabo coming and scrambled for his sword but was nowhere near fast enough before another hit pushed him to the ground.

“Law!” the man ran past them, throwing Luffy onto Ace and making both of them collapse into a heap on the ground.

“Sabo, watch out!” Ace called, trying frantically to get rid of the dead weight on him so he could go help his friend.

Sabo heard the warning and having obviously witnessed the fight earlier, dodged the tall man just in time. He didn’t have enough time to dodge the next hit though, and instead blocked it with his pipe as best he could. The pipe, much too frail for this kind of fight, creaked but didn’t break and Sabo grit his teeth against the strain on his shoulders.

Ace and Luffy finally got on their feet, precious seconds wasted, and ran to help their friend. 

“Room.”

A blue sphere encased them all and Ace felt his heart drop. But he couldn’t afford to get distracted now, maybe if he was fast enough, he could throw Luffy out of the ring before-

“Shambles.”

Ace turned to Luffy just in time to see his limbs come apart and his eyes widen in horror seeing the same thing happen to Ace and Sabo. Ace knew that if he’d survive this day, he’d have new nightmares about Luffy being mutilated, to accompany the ones he was already having about Sabo.

Law’s eyes were flashing in absolute rage, he’d unsheathed his sword and Ace didn’t really have any doubts about whether he was going to use it on them or not.

“Law, are you okay?” the adult asked, trying to check the other boy for injuries and being waved off irritably.

“I’m fine. See, I told you they were trouble, can I kill them  _now_?” Law was gritting his teeth so hard Ace could barely understand the words he was saying.

“Law-“

“What?! Don’t kill us, I don’t wanna die!” Luffy screamed at the top of his throat, tears already pooling at his eyes.

Ace grit his teeth. “Luffy, shut up! Don’t say anything to them!”

“But, Ace-“

“I said shut up!” He was going to find a way out of this for them, he had to, but he was  _not_  going to beg the enemy for mercy.

“No, you shut up!” Law’s eyes were locked onto Ace’s and the latter was surprised to see how much angrier the teenager had seemed to get after Luffy spoke. “If the kid is so important to you, why did you follow us? Why did you attack us again?”

Ace’s fear transformed into anger; the hell did this bastard mean  _why_. “You’re the ones skulking around our turf! What were we supposed to do when you were coming straight for us – let you just kill us without a fight?”

The angry look on Law’s face wavered. “What?”

“If they were following us all this time, we would have noticed”, the tall man piped in. It was really starting to irk Ace that he couldn’t remember the guys’ name, but he really hadn’t thought it important at the time. “Also, look up.”

Law did, without even questioning the other. Was the tall guy his boss or something? His eyes widened the slightest bit at the sight of the tree. Ace, Sabo and Luffy had stashed some of their stuff there, that they didn’t want the bandits getting their hands on. It wasn’t much but it was still their headquarters. 

Law was still squeezing his sword hard, looking like his resolve was wavering but at the same time the rage hadn’t completely left him.

“You live here?”

“None of your business,” Ace scoffed, and he could practically feel the glare Sabo was throwing at his direction. What, they both knew diplomacy wasn’t his thing. He should’ve talked himself if he wanted to not aggravate the assholes.

And of course they didn’t live here, not yet at least. Maybe if they decided to build an actual tree house here, they’d move out of Dadan’s but so far, the nagging was easy enough to ignore in favor of a warm house and a cooked meal. Obviously, he wasn’t going to tell any of that to Law.

“Look, we really did try to avoid meeting you guys again, but we didn’t know you were going to come this way,” Sabo tried to mend the conversation with a conciliatory tone, but Ace honestly didn’t think that was going to be enough this time. Law had been pretty clear last time. By the way Sabo’s eyes flashed towards Luffy, who was trying his best not to cry, it looked like he thought the same.

“At least let Luffy go, okay? He’s just a kid and it’s like you said, we dragged him here.” Ace could hear the guilt in Sabo’s voice and quietly agreed with it. He should’ve done like Ace had told him to and taken Luffy to safety. Then he’d be the only one dying today.

(How wrong was it that a part of him was so ridiculously happy that his friends had come for him, even though he’d never thought anyone would? As much as he wanted them to live, the thought of dying alone scared him.)

“Law, what do you want to do?” The giant man’s tone was even. He was sitting with his legs crossed, back facing them while casually smoking a cigarette. Ace was mildly surprised the guy wasn’t barking orders, that’s what he’d always been doing before.

Law seemed surprised too and his grip on the hilt of his sword tightened to the point where his knuckles were completely white.

“You don’t want me to kill them.” It wasn’t a question.

“I’m asking you what you want. You’re the one holding their lives in your hands.”

Law’s eyes met Ace’s again and both sets reflected the hate of the other. “Letting them go would be stupid. They could tell anyone about us, or they might just attack us again and this time catch us unaware.”

A puff of smoke slowly rose to the sky as the man exhaled. “Perhaps.”

“And we don’t really have any way of ensuring they don’t do any of that, not without taking stupid risks at least.”

“That’s true.” The man took another drag of his cigarette.

“Yeah! So, we can’t just let them go!” Law sounded defensive, his entire attention directed at the man’s back. Ace didn’t really get what was going on so he kept quiet, trying to see if there might come a chance for escape.

The man threw a look at Law over his shoulder, a kind smile on his face. For some reason the expression really bothered Ace.

“That’s up to you.”

“Cora-san!” Law growled, almost petulantly.

So that was the guys’ name: Cora. Ace thought it sounded different from what the man had told them earlier but that didn’t matter, he’d probably been lying then. This time Ace wouldn’t forget.

“Ace, what’s happening? Are they gonna kill us?” Luffy was probably trying to whisper, but the kid really didn’t get how speaking quietly worked so it ended up being a stage whisper, loud enough for all present to hear.

“Luffy, shut up. It’ll be fine, I’m not going to let us die,” Ace covered up his lies with an irritated tone of voice. Luffy probably needed someone to comfort him but Ace had no idea how to do something like that, pitch black lies were the best he had. Of course, Luffy trusted him completely and even though he was still scared, he immediately looked more at ease. Ace’s heart twisted painfully.

He must’ve made a face or something because Law was staring at him strangely. His right hand twitched a few times then and he lowered his sword.

“Fine. So, we won’t kill them, what do we do with them?” The words were directed at Cora who smiled again, this time even more gentle for some reason.

“Put them together first, then we’ll have a talk with them. And this time no running off, boys. We’ve quite reached the amount of surprises we want from you guys.”

Law flicked his hand and all the pieces of Ace, Sabo and Luffy flew into their correct places until the three boys were whole again. It was a surreal experience even the second time; there was no pain, yet Ace was incredibly relieved when it was over, and he could move his limbs at his will again. They were still very much held prisoner, but at least now it felt like they had more of a chance to defend themselves.

The blue bubble around them stayed intact. Sabo sandwiched Luffy between himself and Ace, both to keep him safe and to keep him from running off or doing something stupid before the right time. None of them were holding their weapons anymore but their fists were clenched tightly, and their expressions were guarded.

Cora attempted to break the tension with an awkward smile. Three sets of eyes stared back at him with palpable hostility. The smile wavered. 

“So, I think we’ve really gotten off on the wrong foot here and should probably correct some misunderstandings. First off: me and Law didn’t know you lived here, us coming here was a complete coincidence. Secondly, when Law threatened to kill you if he ever saw you again, he meant as in, if you followed us or purposefully intended to harm us. He wouldn’t have killed you just seeing you in your tree. Thirdly, well, I don’t really have a third point. It sort of feels like I should have, doesn’t it? Three’s a much nicer number for lists than two.”

The man’s ramblings tapered off awkwardly, none of the four children still saying anything. 

Cora lifted a hand to the back of his head. “Um. Okay. So about you guys then. How old are you?”

“I’m seven!” Luffy offered immediately. Ace bonked him on the head.

“Don’t tell him that! They’re the enemy.”

“Oh, right. I’m not seven!”

Cora chuckled. “I see. It looks like your… brothers? friends? are a bit older than you, though. Maybe around nine?”

Ace wanted to correct the man  _so badly_ , after all, he’d be eleven in a few months, but there was no way he was going to tell this bastard anything.

Cora seemed to be reading the answer from his expression, though. “No? A little bit older then, ten – eleven-ish. I don’t think you’d be twelve yet, but I suppose you might be late growers like my Law here.”

“Cora-san!” Law sounded angry again, but in a different way than before. Why the hell was he so comfortable with the guy, there was no way they were related, right?

“Oh, it’s fine. You all have plenty of time to grow taller than me. Then you can call me short.”

Unless one of them was secretly part-giant that wasn’t going to happen.

“Okay, kids, why exactly are you living in the middle of this murder forest? I know Dawn isn’t the nicest country around but surely even here they must have better places for kids than a bandit and tiger infested mountain?”

Sabo pre-emptively slapped a hand on Luffy’s mouth, just as he started blabbing something. This of course didn’t stop Luffy from speaking in the slightest but at least his words were rendered unintelligible.

“I see,” Cora remained as unhindered as Luffy. Possibly he too, was an idiot. “Well, we’re taking you kids to town. There’s no way we’re leaving you here.”

“Like hell you are!” Ace snapped, just a second before he thought to control himself.

Cora lifted his eyebrows. “What, you have troubles in the town?”

_To put it fucking lightly_ , Ace thought. They were  _still_  avoiding Bluejam and his crew.

“From the sound of things being seen in town wouldn’t be great for you two either,” Sabo put in smoothly. “You wanted to find a place to camp in for a bit, right? How about in exchange for leaving our business alone we show you a good place or few? Or we can just point you in the general direction of better land if you don’t want us knowing where you’re staying.” He shot a look at Law. “It’d be the best compromise for all of us here.”

“You certainly are good with words, aren’t you?” Cora said with sternness that concerned Ace. Where was this coming from? “I happen to know that orphans don’t develop that kind of fancy speech on their own. Which means someone’s been taking care of you until fairly recently. Where are they now?”

Sabo gritted his teeth. “None of your fucking business”, he growled aggressively. 

“I see. So right now, no one’s taking care of you? At all?”

“There’s Dadan, but she’s really loud and I hate bandits”, Luffy chirped.

Crap. Sabo’d accidentally let go of him and Luffy was of course incapable of holding on to caution.

The giant crouched in front of Luffy and Ace wanted to kick his feet out from under him. Instead Ace inched closer to Luffy and glared at the man. “Oh? And who’s Dadan? Your parent?”

Luffy made a face. ”No! Ace says she’s an old hag.”

Cora combed a hand through his blonde hair. “So, you’re being taken care of by a bandit that’s not your parent. That seems… problematic. Do you hate this Dadan?”

Luffy went quiet and scrunched up his face in a way that showed he was thinking hard. Ace was surprised. Luffy hated bandits and Dadan wasn’t exactly nice to them, Ace always just kinda assumed that Luffy would dislike her.

In the end the small boy shrugged. “I guess not. She makes us food.”

“Her cooking’s horrible though”, Sabo interjected. Okay, why the hell was Sabo speaking to the enemy now? He was smarter than that.

Luffy laughed. “Sabo, food can’t be bad.”

Ace shot Sabo a look he hoped was saying  _The hell are you doing?_

Sabo looked back at him in the way that usually meant:  _follow my lead_.

Cora, however, looked relieved. “I see. Well that sounds good. You’re strong boys, so I doubt you’d stay with someone you’d hate but I had to make sure. At least if you get in trouble, you have someone to go to.”

“Trouble like you guys?” Sabo said in the flattest tone Ace had ever heard him use. The boy was leaning against Luffy and looking remarkably unimpressed, which was pretty weird seeing as how they were still  _being held prisoner_. Whatever plan he had here, Ace was not getting it.

The giant looked awkward again. Law looked wary. “Ah. Well, as I said, this was a misunderstanding on both parties. I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention seeing us here to anyone.”

Behind Cora’s back Law made a cutthroat gesture.

Sabo waved his hand, still seeming bored out of his mind. “Yeah, yeah, I get that. We’re not going to tell anyone and you’re not going to bother us, right? Same deal as last time but this time for real. So, we can go now?”

“No, not quite yet.”

“Then what the hell do you want?” Ace snapped.

“Yeah what do you want?” Luffy echoed him with much less venom and more happy curiosity. How, how was this happy-go-lucky brat  _actually_  related to the shitty geezer? Had he been hit in the head with the fist of love one too many times?  _Why was he always mimicking Ace in the worst moments?_

Cora gave them a fond smile and Ace wanted to strangle the man so badly. “Me and Law still need a place to camp out for a bit. I think you three can probably show us a good place for that, maybe then we won’t run into each other accidentally anymore.”

“What? They shouldn’t know where we’re camping, they might attack us again!” Law protested, pretty smartly in Ace’s opinion. 

“Oh relax, they won’t attack us. We cleared the misunderstanding.”

For a second there, Ace thought he might see Law chopping up Cora, but sadly the boy got himself under control before violence broke out.

“ _Cora-san_ ”, he growled, and it sounded like a threat and a curse at the same time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with this we've reached the end of the chapters I'd already written out. The next update is probably going to take a while and since my school will start soon too, I can't really promise a consistent update schedule or anything.
> 
> A note about the chapter: Law's sword isn't Kikoku because I think he hasn't gotten it yet? I couldn't really find out when or where he got it, so for now Law has to do with a boring regular sword.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8.

Sabo, Ace and Luffy showed the two intruders a decent place to camp out for a bit. It was far away from both their usual hunting grounds and the bandits, so Sabo had been pretty confident there wouldn't be any more ambushes on anyone's part.

Sabo had been dreading in advance having to convince Luffy to stay away from the exciting new strangers but unexpectedly Luffy hadn't required much convincing. Apparently after all that had happened, he was a bit scared of Law. 

With that, everything had been resolved pretty neatly. There was no longer any reason to have to see Cora or Law again.

…

"What the hell are you doing here?!" Ace yelled at Law. Sabo and Luffy running right on their heels.

The three had gone hunting today to make up for the last few days. They hadn't had a specific target in mind, just anything big enough that crossed them while training in the forest. That was until they ran into Law, who was running away from the biggest tiger of the forest, and now all four of them were running for their lives.

"None of your business!" Law bit back, just as pissed off as Ace.

"Yes, it is! You're on our side of the forest, you runt."

"Who're you calling a runt, you bastard? I'll cut you!"

"How about you cut the big-ass tiger instead, huh? Since you're such a big shot."

Law looked away and Sabo was fairly sure he saw a blush creep up the other boys face.

Seriously? The one time it would be useful the kid actually _couldn't_  use his power?

"What if we distract the tiger for a bit, will you be able to cut it up then?" Sabo asked, because if this kept up for much longer, they were going to get caught and eaten.

"Uh, yeah, I think so."

Ace leveled a glare at Law. "You better not screw us on this one, runt." Then he turned back, pipe ready to swing at the monstrous tiger. Sabo and Luffy joined him in a heartbeat.

It only took Law around ten seconds of distraction to have the tiger chopped up and floating in mid-air apparently completely unharmed but pissed as hell.

The boy had a freaky power, there was no way around that. What the hell kind of devil’s fruit had he eaten? Weren’t those supposed to be super rare anyway?

“Can we eat that?” Luffy asked and Sabo had to marvel at how strange the situation must’ve been for Luffy to actually  _ask_  if something was edible.

“No. Law’s the one that caught it, so he gets to eat it,” Ace admitted with a pout. Sabo wasn’t happy about letting their prize go either, but fair was fair.

“… There’s no way I can eat the whole thing before it goes bad,” Law deadpanned, disbelief in his voice. “Look at it. It’s  _massive_!”

Ace, Sabo and Luffy shared a look of mutual confusion.

“You have that other guy with you though?” Sabo ventured. Surely the two of them could eat the tiger in a few days at most. Were they picky eaters or something? Did Law not want to share?

“ _That tiger is massive!”_  Law punctuated his words more clearly this time, as if maybe the other kids hadn’t quite caught his words before.

“Does that mean we get to eat it?” Luffy asked, all hopeful and full of sparkles.

Ah. Maybe this was Law’s game. He convinced them he couldn’t eat the whole tiger just so he could sell it to them for some unknown high price. Not on Sabo’s watch.

Law waved his hand as if it would help prove whatever point he was trying to make. “Can you even find a way to cook it all before it goes bad?”

Sabo slapped a hand over Luffy’s mouth before the other boy could go blabbing all about Dadan and the bandits.

“We can. If you don’t want all of it, we can take some meat off your hands. After all,” Sabo tried his very best not to sound sly, “We did help you take it down.”

Law scoffed. “Fine, but I’m taking all the fatty parts.”

Luffy cheered enthusiastically, if muffled. That got Sabo’s hand effectively covered in spit, so he let go, grossed out.

Law looked at their feast-to-be again and asked: “Is tiger meat even edible anyway?”

The sound Luffy and Ace made in response was pure offense. The tiger was made of meat. Meat was always edible, end of story. 

“You’re really weird,” Luffy declared cheerfully. Law glared at him, but it didn’t deter the smaller boy much. A gift of food had done wonders for his opinion of Law.

After killing the tiger, Law got to work on dividing the meat. True to his word, he only took the best parts. Sabo found it interesting that the other boy seemed to know where they fatty bits on a tiger were roughly located, since he didn’t even know that tigers were edible.

During this operation Luffy was bouncing around excitedly and endlessly chattering away at anything that crossed his mind – mostly food.

“ - and my favorite meat is alligator, but tiger is really, really good too. We haven’t eaten tiger in a long time. Ahhh, I’m so hungry now.”

Ace and Sabo were keeping an eye on things in case Law lost his temper at the flood of words, but the other boy mainly seemed to be getting exasperated. He was pretending to ignore Luffy, but Sabo and Ace could say from experience that no one ignored Luffy.

“Ah! That looks so good!” Luffy leaned in on a piece Law had just cut, he was drooling so hard some of it landed on the meat. Law looked at the ruined meat disgruntled, but still not that angry.

In the end, he let the matter go with a sigh. “Look, you can have this one  _if_  you promise to be quiet.”

Luffy snatched the meat and beamed up at the other boy. “You’re not such a bad guy, after all!”

Law quickly turned back to the tiger carcass, so his face was out of view, but Sabo was fairly sure he could see Law’s ears reddening.

\------------------------------------------------------------------

Law had been gone a lot longer than Rosinante was comfortable with. He shouldn’t have let the boy go out hunting alone, but Law was strong and didn’t appreciate being babied. Besides, the boy had slipped out when Rosinante was having a nap, that wild brat.

It was unlikely anything could’ve happened, right? With his devil fruit power Law was stronger than most things in this jungle. Except maybe the giant bears or tigers. Or another strong person. There  _were_  bandits on this mountain after all. 

He also could’ve gotten lost. What were you supposed to do when someone got lost again? Someone was supposed to stay still, but was it the person who was lost or the person who was waiting for the other to return? If he went out looking for Law and meanwhile Law returned to their camp, how would he know? 

“Gah! What am I supposed to do?” Rosinante whined, pulling at strands of his hair.

“What are you doing?” came the voice of Law behind him.

Rosinante turned, finally stopping his manic pacing around the campfire, that had already caused tracks on the ground.

“Law! Oh, thank god, I was sure something had happened to you.”

Law lifted an eyebrow questioningly. He was dragging what looked like half a giant tiger behind him and other than being slightly ruffled, he looked completely unharmed.

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I was thinking maybe a giant tiger had attacked you or something,  _silly me_.”

Law dropped the tiger meat in front of the fire and stopped to wipe some sweat off his forehead. “It’s fine. I can handle myself.”

Rosinante dearly wanted to argue that that wasn’t the point, but he wasn’t sure it would’ve helped any. 

Parenting was a lot more difficult than Sengoku-san had made it seem. Someone had to have written like an instructional booklet for child rearing, right? Next time he saw a bookshop, he’d have to check.

“I can see that”, Rosinante sighed and gave up. “But I’m still surprised you could hunt these giant creatures alone. How did you do it?”

Law shuffled his feet a bit, then moved on to the tiger carcass like he hadn’t heard the question.

“So, do you know how to cook tiger, Cora-san?”

...Suspicious.

“Law?”

“Hm?”

“What happened with the tiger?”

Law’s face fell into an angry pout. “Can you cook it or not?”

Rosinante crossed his arms and looked at Law expectantly. He had all day to wait this out if he had to.

Law tried ignoring him for a bit, but the silence seemed to be getting to him. A few minutes of silent pressure and the boy reached his breaking point.

“Fine! I got some help from the three brats from yesterday, okay? They only distracted the beast for a little bit, so I basically hunted it down myself.”

“You talked with those boys?” And no one ended up killing anyone? And they even worked together? Was Law finally making some friends? Rosinante couldn’t have been happier, he could practically feel himself glowing.

“Cora-san, stop that! Stop being weird!”

Rosinante grabbed Law into a bear hug and tussled his hair. “Never!”

That quickly escalated into a fight that only ended when they almost knocked the tiger meat onto the open flame.

Rosinante laughed as Law scolded him. 

They ate dinner mostly in companiable silence, every once in a while saying something that’d popped in to their head. After dinner, while they were cleaning up, Law suddenly spoke, in a slow carefully careless manner.

“You know, we don’t really have a destination in mind in the East Blue, right?”

Rosinante decided to see where this was going and lit up a fresh cigarette casually. “That’s true.”

“So, I was thinking, this island is as good as any, right? We could stay for a bit?”

Rosinante covered a smile by bringing the cigarette to his lips.

“I don’t see why we couldn’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was hard! It was absolutely refusing to be written, but I finally managed to tackle it to submission. On hindsight, I'm not sure if the tigers and bears in the jungle are actually giant in the show, or if they just look so big because the ASL brothers are so small, but I figure they're still larger than normal ones would be. So in this fic, they are.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9.

 

Rosinante figured that, if they really were going to be staying on Dawn Island for a while, they needed some stuff. At least something they could build a temporary lodging with, while they looked for something better. He was reluctant to go into the Capital, since a lot of people lived there and with people there was always the risk of being recognized, even this far out from the North Blue. Gray Terminal wasn’t really all that much better people-wise, especially since the people there were more likely to be connected to criminal organizations like Doffy’s. But their choices were few, so Rosinante decided to risk it and go to Grey Terminal. If they just kept their heads down and didn’t make a fuss, it was likely the other people would be more interested in their own lives.

                      But just in case, he was wearing a disguise. It was a long brown cloak with a hood he kept drawn to cover his face.

                      “That just makes you look more suspicious”, Law pointed out from next to him, after the fifth time Rosinante had tripped because he’d accidentally stepped on the cloak.

                      Sure, it wasn’t the best possible disguise in the world, but once again, Rosinante was low on options. The most eye-catching things about him were his height and his face tattoos. There wasn’t much he could do to hide his height and he didn’t have any makeup to cover his tattoos with, so a cloak would have to do.

                      Rosinante picked himself up with a grin directed at Law. “Nah, the clumsiness actually helps. It makes people think we’re more harmless, so they’ll pay less attention.” Which might’ve or might’ve not been true.

                      Law’s eyes were unimpressed, he wasn’t buying it. He went back to looking through the pile of garbage in front of him without saying a word. Rosinante kinda wanted to cry, Law could be  _so_  cold.

                      “Got nowhere left to run now, brats!”

                      Rosinante perked up at hearing a yell behind them. He turned to see the three kids from before, being driven into a corner by a group of unsavory looking men.

                      “Tch.” The one called Ace didn’t look particularly worried, but he did look as angry as ever.

                      Rosinante turned back to his own trash pile. The men surrounding the kids didn’t seem very strong, those children should have no problems taking them out. Law was looking at the scene from the corner of his eyes, trying very hard to look like he wasn’t. Rosinante stifled a smile. It figured Law would make friends with troublemakers like these.

                      “Our Captain’s been looking for you three. And he’s not very happy”, the hooligan who’d talked before gloated. Rosinante felt like rolling his eyes, it seemed like no matter where he went, he was bound to run into theatrical villains.

                      “Yeah? Well you can tell Bluejam to kiss my ass!”

                      Rosinante snorted at that, even if it probably was a really stupid thing to say to these people.

                      Apparently, the men weren’t too happy with that answer, because a fight broke out. By the sounds of the grunts and yells, the three small children were winning. Rosinante found a sturdy plank that seemed like it was hardly rotting at all. It was shaping up to be a good day.

                      “Let go of Luffy!”

                      “Don’t come any closer, you damn brats!”

                      Rosinante turned again to regard the fight. The smallest of the children, Luffy, had been taken hostage by one of the grunts. Luffy tried struggling in the grip that was holding him, but he just wasn’t as strong and capable as his friends. Ace and Sabo were staring at the kidnapper with impotent rage, squeezing their pipes so hard Rosinante was half expecting to see cracks. They didn’t dare to approach though, since the man was holding a knife to Luffy’s neck.

                      Rosinante still didn’t see a real reason to interfere.  Luffy was hardly a weakling, as he’d witnessed himself some days prior, and Luffy’s two friends were slippery enough to get them out of a situation like this.

                      He was about to get back to his looting when he chanced a look at Law. Law had stopped pretending he wasn’t watching, too immersed in what he was seeing. His mouth was pursed into a thin line and his shoulders were set angrily. He was probably only seconds away from jumping into the fray and using his powers on these people.

                      Rosinante sighed, then got up from his crouching position.

                      “You stay here”, he whispered to Law. He didn’t stay long enough for the boy to answer.

                      The kidnapper was facing the children, taunting them. His back was turned to Rosinante. Knocking him out was just ridiculously easy, Rosinante kind of felt like a bully. The ensuing fight didn’t make him feel much better either, it only took him a few punches and kicks to get rid of the rest of the group, at least the ones Ace, Luffy and Sabo didn’t take down.

                      When it was all over, there were only the low groans of their hapless victims and the ever-hostile glares of the three children. Well, two children. Luffy was just staring at him in wide-eyed wonder.

                      “Why’d you help us?” Sabo questioned, as suspicious as if Rosinante was a stranger who’d just offered them candy.

                      Rosinante shrugged. “Consider it as repayment from before.” He turned to leave back to the forest, their scavenging was definitely up for today. Then he tripped on the hem of his cloak. “Let’s go, Law”, he called, voice muffled by the ground.

                      Law helped him up with a grumble and they left. The boy was about to say something, a complaint no doubt, when Ace caught up to them.

                      “Hey, you, how did you learn to fight like that?” his tone was challenging and hard, but it seemed he was curious despite himself.

                      Rosinante shrugged again and it caused him to stumble a little. Law gave him a smack. “Here and there.”  _In the streets, in the marines, in a pirate crew. Take your pick._

                      Ace seemed unsatisfied by the answer and he stopped in front of them, blocking their route.

                      “Why did you help us, really? What do you two want from us?” He seemed angry again and Rosinante was painfully reminded of Law. Why did these children have to live lives that left them so angry? When was even the last time he’d met a kid that actually seemed to live a good life?

                      “Huh? What the hell are you asking?” Law demanded, clearly picking a fight. “If we wanted something from you brats, we would’ve already said it.”

                      “Yeah, then why do keep popping up everywhere we go, you damn stalker runt?”

                      Rosinante could practically see lightning sparking between the boys glaring bloody murder at each other.

                      “He~y, I wanna say hello to Law, too!” Luffy bounded to them like an excited puppy. “Hi, Law!”

                      Law blinked, clearly confused at the other’s friendly tone. “Hello.”

                      “Shishishi”, Luffy laughed like something funny had been said and Rosinante was starting to like this kid more and more.

                      “Damnit, Luffy, I’ve told you not to run off like that”, Sabo scolded the smaller child, arriving right on his heels at a more leisurely pace. He looked up at Rosinante, seeming all casual and relaxed, yet Rosinante could see the underlaying tension. “What were you two even doing in the Gray Terminal?”

                      “We’re thinking of staying in Dawn a while, so we’re looking for supplies”, Rosinante replied without missing a beat.

                      “What?” Ace sputtered.

                      “Why?” Sabo asked, eyes narrowing slightly.

                      “We’ve nowhere else to be and this seems like a nice place”, Rosinante answered half-truthfully. Honestly this place didn’t seem anything like nice. Why were there  _giant_  bears and tigers in the forest? Wasn’t the East Blue supposed to be weak, for heaven’s sake?

                      “Are you gonna sleep in the forest? Oh, are you gonna fight the bears?” Luffy questioned enthusiastically like he’d just read Rosinante’s mind.

                      “Hopefully not”, the man admitted with a sigh.

                      Ace was burrowing his brow in anger, but to Rosinante’s surprise it was actually Sabo who spoke first.

                      “Well, you can’t stay! The forest is ours.” His voice was firm, his stare unwavering. Rosinante couldn’t help but notice how Law’s mouth pulled downwards a bit more. Despite that, the man couldn’t really blame these kids for disliking them. The boys had no reason to trust Law and Rosinante, and they had all the reasons to be wary. Rosinante hadn’t yet forgotten how it was growing up on the streets, always on the run, always hiding. He suspected these kids were going through something similar and it just about broke his heart.

                      Rosinante pulled a hand through his hair, trying to figure something to say that would diffuse the situation. Then genius struck.

                      “Alright, then how about this: I’ll pay you rent for our stay by training you.”

                      The proposition was met with general bafflement.

                      “Training like fighting training?” Luffy asked, his head cocked in confusion. “Are you really that strong, ossan?” He seemed doubtful.

                       _I’m still young, damn it!_

                      Rosinante forced out a laugh. “Well I’m no marine Admiral but at the very least I’m stronger than you three.” He  _had_  been a Commander and then an executive in the Donquixote pirates.

                      Ace spat on the ground. “Tch. This is stupid. Let’s go.” He turned to leave but neither Sabo nor Luffy followed him, so he was forced to either hover around irritated or leave. He chose the former.

                      “Why would you train us, really?” Sabo questioned him, eyes squinted in suspicion.

                      Rosinante glanced at Law, who was glaring at him back, clearly having no idea what the older man was trying to pull. Rosinante had a feeling that lying wouldn’t work very well for him here, and he was shit at that anyway.

                      “Honestly, I’m hoping you’ll befriend Law. He could use friends around his own age.” Law spat a vicious curse his way. “My other reason is that it would just be nice to see you brats out of trouble for once. You’re strong kids, but you’re not strong enough.” Not if they ever wanted to leave this island, let alone the East Blue. Which, you know, maybe they didn’t. It wasn’t as if Rosinante knew what they wanted from their future.

                      “We don’t need your pity!” Ace growled, his two friends agreeing vehemently.

                      Rosinante shrugged, without a stumble this time, as he noted with no small amount of pride. “It’s not pity. But you are of course welcome to turn down my offer. Either way, we’ll be staying a while.”

                      He pushed past the kids blocking his way. He could feel three pairs of eyes on his back as he walked deeper into the jungle. He could still feel them on him when he tripped on a previously unseen tree root.

…Damnit.

 

\---------------------------------------------------------

 

Luffy was laying on his stomach in the grass, looking as some ants were trying to take away a dead worm that was way too big for them. He wondered if worms were tasty. He’d eaten centipedes before but never worms.

                      “It has to be a trap of some kind, right? Why would he offer otherwise?” Ace asked Sabo, he sounded angry, but Luffy didn’t really get why.

                      “Yeah, it’s definitely a weird offer. But he doesn’t seem like a bad guy, more like a pushover, really”, Sabo replied.

                      Worms  _looked_  like they could be tasty. He poked the dried-up worm with his finger, causing the ants to drop it and skitter around angrily.

                      “So, you think we should accept? Are you an idiot?!”

                      “I didn’t say that!”

                      The ants were working really hard to get the worm, so that meant it must taste really good, right? 

                      Now Luffy was starting to feel hungry.

                      “Ace, Sabo, I’m hungry”, he whined. Ants weren’t that interesting anymore and Sabo and Ace were just talking all the time.

                      “Shut up, Luffy, we’re talking!” Ace snapped.

                      Luffy turned back to the ants with a huff, Ace was mean. It was quiet for a really long time; the worm was dragged along a little further and Luffy’s stomach started growling. He was really hungry now.

                      “But, I mean, I  _am_  curious. Aren’t you?” Sabo had that tone of voice he did when he didn’t want to fight with Ace anymore. It always got Ace to calm down.

                      “… I guess”, Ace’s voice was a lot quieter, even though he was still pretending he was angry. Sabo was amazing, he always knew how to do that sort of things to people. Even Ace didn’t know how to do that!

                      Sabo tapped the end of his pipe on a rock. “The guy seems pretty strong, I think we should take advantage of that. If the world is full of people as strong as him and Law, we need to get a lot stronger too and I don’t know how to do that.”

                      “We’re already plenty strong! We can just train more by ourselves”, Ace was getting irritated again, Luffy knew he’d be burrowing his eyebrows and he’d have that hard glint in his eyes. Ace really didn’t like other people and he didn’t want to spend time with them.

                      Hmm, that worm would probably be all nice and crunchy. Luffy liked crunchy things.

                      “Yeah, and if we train all the time, could we then take out someone like Law with his powers? Or what about if there are two devils fruit users? We can’t even beat Bluejam yet.”

                      “I bet we could if we had to.”

                      “Real pirates are strong, Ace! If we want to be pirates, we have to become so much stronger than we are now.”

                      Luffy perked up a little at that. He always liked to talk about pirates. He looked back at his friends, who were staring each other down again, looking like they might start fighting. That was dumb, their fighting was dumb. Giant Ossan wasn’t a bad guy, Luffy could tell and he said as much.

                      “Be quiet, Luffy. We’ll go eat soon”, Sabo ignored him, never taking his eyes away from Ace. Now Luffy was starting to get annoyed.

                      “Why do you trust this guy so much, anyway? He’s a threat to us”, Ace asked through gritted teeth.

                      “I  _don’t_  trust him. But I think it could be a good idea to see what his training is about and if he’s as strong as he says he is. It’s an opportunity.”

                      It was quiet again as Ace thought about something. Luffy eyed the worm. He’d decided, it was definitely yummy.

                      “And if he’s tricking us? What do you want to do then?”

                      “Then we’ll kick their asses somehow, we got pretty close last time”, there was a grin in Sabo’s voice, then a beat of silence and Sabo’s voice grew a warning edge. “Luffy, what are you eating?”

                      “Mhhm?” 

                      “Spit that out, Luffy!”

                      And suddenly Sabo and Ace weren’t fighting anymore and Luffy was happy, even if he had to take off on a sprint to keep his snack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally got a Luffy's point of view! I've been dreading it since Luffy's such a difficult character to write from the inside. But then I got on a tangent with that worm and the rest of the chapter just seemed to write itself.
> 
> That being said, I would love critique on this chapter, it felt kind of stiff to me and I wasn't sure if I was rushing things too much. Feedback helps me plan my future chapters and develop my writing, so I definitely appreciate comments!


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10.

 

“You three have very good strength and endurance, it’s pretty clear that your biggest issue is in lack of technique and practice with stronger opponents.”

 Law was surprised that Ace, Sabo and Luffy had shown up after all. He was even more surprised that they seemed to be listening to Cora-san’s evaluation without kicking up a fuss.

“And you Law, have very good technique and decent experience in fighting much stronger opponents, but your stamina and strength have deteriorated, and we haven’t really had the time to build it back up again, yet.”

Law frowned. He hated that even though he’d already healed himself, the amber lead disease still affected his life in some ways. Most of all he hated the pale splotches on his skin that practically beamed out from his darker skin tone. At least they were slowly fading out with time.

“I think it would be a good idea to have you spar for a bit, to give me a more accurate view on what you need to work on.” Cora-san clapped his hands together, seemingly excited, not that Law could understand why. “Law and Sabo, you’ll be sparring with each other first. Then Ace and Luffy.”

Ace frowned. “It’s not going to be much of a fight then.”

“Will too! This time I’ll kick your ass, Ace!” Luffy proclaimed, all wounded kid-pride.

“It doesn’t have to be a long drawn out match, I’m just trying to get a better grasp of how you fight, for now”, Cora-san assured them. Ace still narrowed his eyes at the man and Luffy puffed up his cheeks, literally. Luffy’s devil fruit power was creepy.

Law rolled his eyes and got ready for a fight, no matter what Cora-san said.

“Oh, by the way, no using your devil fruit ability, Law”, Cora-san called out.

“What?!”

 “Right now, your training needs to focus on bettering your physical abilities. In the long run it’ll help with your devil fruit abilities as well, trust me.”

 Sabo was grinning like Doflamingo used to when he made his enemies kill each other for his amusement. Law did not like it.

Law could hear his teeth grinding against each other. This little  _brat_  thought that he could beat up Law so easily just because devil fruit powers were banned. Well Law was more than happy to humiliate Sabo again, and maybe this time the lesson would stick.

The two kids stood opposite to each other, eyes locked. Sabo twirled the pipe in his hands a couple of times, as if to test it. Law felt he was at disadvantage with no weapon, but he didn’t want to use his knife or sword and risk turning the spar awry. His first priority then had to be disarming his opponent.

 Sabo rushed at him head-on, unsurprisingly. For all his fancy words the boy fought like a moron.

It was easy enough to side-step the initial attack, Law followed that up with making a swipe for the pipe, but his punch lacked the power and Sabo’s grip remained firm. Sabo was also quick; the instant Law tried to grab his weapon he was already back on the offense.

Law dodged another bone-crushing swing of the pipe, this time much more narrowly. Sabo was adapting his reaction times quick and that meant Law had to up his pace as well. On the next hit Law dodged under the pipe and closed the distance between them. Using this moment of surprise, he took advantage of Sabo’s hands being occupied by the weapon and punched the other boy in the face. It was a good punch, Law felt, but even he admitted it was pretty weak. Sabo didn’t as much wince from pain as he did flinch from surprise, but the result was the same. Sabo’s left hand reflexively left the pipe to cover up his face. With this Law could grab the weapon with both his hands and  _wrench_.

The pipe flew up in the air, Sabo’s eyes followed it, his mouth opening up in disbelief and surprise. Law went in for another punch. This time he could feel his fist connect nicely and Sabo’s expression colored with pain.

The punch seemed to knock Sabo out of distraction because he blocked Law’s next punch, swatted the fist aside like it was an offending bug. Law quickly got ready to dodge but Sabo was not having it anymore and he grabbed the other boy by the shirt and used it to drive Law onto Sabo’s already approaching knuckles.

Law kicked Sabo’s feet out from under him and they both went tumbling down, Sabo pinned under Law.

The fight went on for what felt like several black eyes. Sabo was quicker and stronger, which helped him connect more punches and deal more damage. But Law had better tactics and a lot of dirty tricks he wasn’t afraid to use, that helped him to more than hold up his own.

“Alright boys, that’s enough!” Cora-san called suddenly, just when Sabo was about to drive Law head-first into the ground.

Both boys startled, having forgotten about their audience early-on in the fight.

“That was an impressive spar, but there’s no need to take it further. Let’s not make any unnecessary grudges today.”

Sabo let go of Law’s head and Law stopped trying to strangle Sabo. Both looked at each other with a certain amount of sheepishness which quickly turned to annoyance when Cora-san swooped down to ruffle their hair.

“Hey, quit it, ossan!” Sabo demanded indignantly. Law swatted at the offending hand. Both attempts were equally in vain. 

“You match up to each other very equally. With just a little bit of training you’ll both be beating up people in no time.” Cora-san seemed to think about his words for a second. “But you shouldn’t do that without good reason. I’m not raising any hooligans here.”

Next up was Ace’s spar against Luffy. Luffy was absolutely bursting with joy, apparently made more excited by Law’s and Sabo’s “super cool fight”. Ace, however, was sulkier than ever.

“It’s not gonna be very exciting against Luffy”, he warned with a frown. “He’s never won against me or Sabo.”

“I will this time, though, I know it!” Luffy declared, not deterred in the slightest. Ace rolled his eyes with a huff.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s exciting or not”, Cora-san assured them with a smile that looked slightly creepy on his tattooed face. “I’m just trying to get a general sense of where you can improve. And judging from what I’ve seen before, you three seem to have a very similar fighting style anyway.”

“Does  _he_  get to use his devil fruit powers?” Law pointed at Luffy and knowing he sounded like a petty brat. But he  _had_  just gotten repeatedly punched in the face. A bit of pettiness should’ve been allowed.

  Cora-san scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Can you turn your powers off, Luffy?”

Luffy laughed, hands carelessly swung behind his head. “Nope!”

Law grumbled. “Fine.” It’s not like he could really be bitter at the kid anyway.

The spar between Luffy and Ace was over quickly. It wasn’t that Luffy wasn’t as strong or fast as Ace, but his main issue was the fact that he couldn’t land a hit. Every time he tried to use his stretched-out hands to land a punch, he’d lose control and the fist would miss by a long shot.

On the other hand, Luffy could really take a hit. Ace won the duel by conking him on the head, the kind of punch that would’ve given Law a concussion for sure. Luffy just lost his footing and tumbled down, with apparently no further damage. He didn’t even seem to be angry he’d lost, immediately demanding another spar and shouting that he’d “win next time for sure”.

“Right. Well that was interesting”, Cora-san stated blandly. “It’s pretty clear that my first priority with Luffy should be gaining control of his devil fruit power. For now, though, you all could use some stamina and power building. We’ll start on technique tomorrow.”

Cora-san made them do laps, push-ups and pull-ups, all the usual stuff that Law had already done once when he was still a part of the Family. He hadn’t really realized how much his sickness had weakened him before now, seeing how badly he compared to Ace, Sabo and even Luffy. It only made him that much more determined.

After a few hours of training Luffy’s stomach pitched a fit. It was growling, loudly.  Luffy threw himself to the ground and whined how he was probably dying from hunger.

“Oh, shut up, Luffy. It hasn’t even been that long since we ate,” Ace said and rolled his eyes.

“Actually, Ace, this might be a side effect of Luffy’s powers,” Cora-san interjected, looking at Luffy with a concerned expression. “This sort of thing happens with some devil fruits. The user just runs through energy much faster than the average person and that’s why they have to eat a lot more. Are you feeling weak, Luffy?”

“Yeeees,” the boy groaned pitifully.

“Alright, maybe it’s time you boys go catch something for dinner then. Bring it back here and I’ll cook it,” Cora-san promised.

Luffy sprang back to his feet in an instant, full of energy once again. “Ooh, I want to eat alligator!” Law had his doubts about Cora-san’s theory. In his opinion Luffy was just a huge drama queen.

“Alligator again, huh. We eat that like once a week, at least,” Sabo sighed.

“I like it!” Luffy countered with a happy smile. Sabo just ruffled his hair in defeat. Law could see how they ended up eating alligator so often. 

“Let’s go then.”

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

When the day had started, Law had been pretty sure he understood where the three kids stood with each other. He was less convinced now.

“This is not a good idea,” he felt compelled to point out.

“It’s the best way to catch an alligator. It’s fine, we won’t let him get eaten,” Ace defended himself lazily. He and Sabo seemed way too casual about this.

They were currently holding a huge fishing pole, with Luffy tied up as bait dangling just above the water. Luffy didn’t seem thrilled about this, but he was certainly taking it a lot better than Law would have.

  “How often have you done this?” Law demanded to know.

“I told you, we eat alligator at least once a week,” Sabo shrugged. “Luffy’s the one that wants the alligator, not us.”

Apparently Luffy did make for fantastic bait because Sabo barely got to finish his sentence before a gigantic alligator leapt out of the water to gobble up the boy.

Shit. Ace and Sabo couldn’t move fast enough to save Luffy from being eaten. There was really only one way.

  “Room. Shambles.”

  The alligator got stopped mid-leap and teleported in place of a big rock near where Law, Sabo and Ace were standing.

  “Wha-? Ace, take care of it, I’ll reel in Luffy!” Sabo took control of the situation and Ace and Law followed his lead. One hit from Ace was enough to disorient the creature and Law followed that up with a swing of his sword. The alligator roared, thrashed around a bit and then died.

“We’re not doing that again,” Law warned the other three severely. 

“I didn’t know you could teleport objects,” Sabo responded, completely beside the point.

  “Your ability is freaky,” Ace remarked from the crouched position he’d taken to inspect the alligator. Normally this sort of comment might’ve pissed Law off, but Ace’s tone was just so casual, like he was stating a well-known fact, that Law found himself quietly agreeing with him.

“At least I’m not insane, like you people.”

Later that day Law got to witness the spectacle of Ace, Luffy and Sabo having a meal and he felt both immeasurable repulsion and medical curiosity.

  _Oh. I bet they could’ve eaten that whole tiger then._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took a while. We're in the parts of the story where I'm not exactly sure of what I want to do.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11. 

  

“And you’re saying that works every time?” Law asked incredulously. 

They were out for a run through the jungle, to raise their stamina. Cora had only been training them for a few weeks, but Ace had to admit, he was starting to see the effects. Biggest difference had probably been in Law, who could follow at their pace much better these days. A shame, it had been really funny when Law’d tried to keep up with them all out of breath and too proud to admit it. The boy had just about killed himself to not be left behind. 

“Well every time so far”, Sabo nodded. 

“But it’s just the three of you stacked on top of each other, wearing a cape? How would that pass for an adult, the proportions would be all wrong.” 

“No, no, no. You’re thinking of this all wrong.” Sabo dodged a low hanging branch. “Why would anyone look at a tall guy in a cape and think ‘I bet that’s three kids standing on each other’s shoulders’? No one around here cares that much about others, so they won’t be looking hard in the first place.” 

“Huh. I suppose that makes sense”, Law admitted reluctantly. 

“Do you think if all four of us stood on each other's shoulders, we’d be taller than giant  _ossan_?” Luffy asked curiously. 

“We should try that when we get back”, Ace replied, intrigued despite himself. 

They came to a part of their route that required them to swing from a tree branch to another to go forward. It was a part that Law had early-on in their training kept falling down in, only to be saved by one of the other three. Now he could clear it just about as effortlessly as the rest of them. 

Sabo grinned at Law. “Nicely done.” 

Law scoffed. “How nice and condescending of you.” 

Ace didn’t know what condescending meant, but Sabo clearly did because he laughed. Luffy didn’t know what it meant either, but he laughed anyway. 

Law was prickly and stubborn and all-around difficult, but he still got along well with Sabo and Luffy. Especially Sabo acted different in his company, he used fancier words and he often had a sly look on his face when talking to Law. Luffy seemed to absolutely adore the other boy and in turn Law was protective of Luffy. 

Sometimes Ace felt like he didn’t belong there anymore. Ace had originally made friends with Sabo and Luffy because they wanted his company, they needed him just as much as he needed them.  Now they had a new friend, who was older and smarter than Ace. Who didn’t have cursed blood. 

Law already had Cora, he didn’t really need anyone else.  

Ace let himself get behind the group a little, just enough to see their backs in front of him. There was a helpless sort of anger bubbling inside him, it wasn’t the kind he used to win fights or overcome fear. It was dark and petty, and he didn’t like the feeling of it. 

_I don’t want to be alone._  

“Ace?” Luffy called him, eyes big and questioning. 

“Coming.” He grumbled back. 

He was angry a lot lately, enough to be sick of it. Luffy and Sabo were probably getting tired of him too. 

It didn’t really matter how well everyone got on with Law, anyway. He and Cora were just going to leave Dawn soon no matter what.  Ace didn’t want to waste his time. 

But Luffy looked up at Law with wonder and Sabo smiled a mischievous grin when he was with them and Ace couldn’t help but notice that Law and Cora being here made them happier. 

“We should go hunt after this”, Luffy proclaimed mid-jump. 

That was a good idea, Ace was getting hungry too. He was just about to mention that he’d seen boar tracks on their run, when Law piped up. 

“Again? We just caught a huge snake yesterday.” 

“Don’t come then”, Ace grumbled. He hadn’t even meant to say it out loud, but judging by Law’s angry glare he’d been heard. 

“What?” Law’s tone was hard and challenging, and echoed the frustration that Ace was feeling. “What is it  _now_?” 

They’d all stopped running, Ace and Law were facing each other, fists clenched at the sides but not yet throwing a punch. 

“You don’t have to always come with us everywhere. Go hang out with Cora for a change”, Ace spat out. 

Law’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t tell me what to do.” 

“I already did.” 

“What is your issue with me? You’re always whining about something and it’s getting really annoying. You’re getting really annoying.” 

Ace didn’t even realize what he was doing before he’d already punched Law. They both went down as a tumbling heap of fists and curses. Ace punched him again, which Law partially blocked. Law tried to shake him off, but Ace managed another punch. 

“Room!” 

A blue bubble spread around them. Ace went still and terror was rising in his throat, against his will. Shit. 

Ace and Law stared at each other. Ace’s eyes were wide and full of anger, frustration and fear. Law’s eyes were angry too, but there was something else there, something dark and complicated. Then suddenly he just looked resigned. 

“Get off me!” Law kicked Ace off of him with an angry huff. Ace let him, still expecting to be dissected, when the bubble just fizzled out. 

Law clambered back on his feet and marched off into the forest without a word, an angry look on his face. 

Sabo looked at Ace bewilderedly. “What was that about?” 

Ace didn’t feel like answering so he clenched his teeth, got up and walked off. 

Just fucking great. 

 

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

  

Rosinante wasn’t expecting the boys back for a while yet. They usually went hunting after they were done running, no matter how many times Rosinante had asked them to let him at least know before they did that. These kids didn’t listen to anyone and he had no choice but to accept that, as exasperated as it made him. 

 That’s why he was surprised to see Ace come stomping through the jungle looking like a storm cloud on two feet. 

  “Ace?” 

   Ace seemed to just then noticed Rosinante,  the boy looked around and seemed surprised to find himself back in the camp. Then the surprise faded, and he looked sullen again. 

   “Everything alright?” Rosinante asked tentatively.  

   Ace was a good kid. He was temperamental and you needed to be careful when handling him, but he cared deeply for Sabo and Luffy and when he was in a good mood Rosinante could see his softer side. 

  Really, he reminded Rosinante quite a bit of Law, which probably explained why the two had so much trouble getting along. 

 “Yes”, Ace’s answer was clipped, and he refused to look Rosinante in the eye. 

  Rosinante hummed thoughtfully. He needed some sort of distraction to help the boy relax a bit, if he wanted to talk. 

 “Are you hungry? We still have some snake left over from yesterday.” 

 And what an experience that had been, tasting snake. Rosinante was no picky eater, he’d grown up scavenging garbage bins, after all, but even he gave pause when presented with a giant dead snake. It had still turned out to taste alright, if he lied to himself, he could claim it tasted like chicken. 

Ace nodded sullenly. Even if he was angry, he wouldn’t turn down food. Those three kids ate like they were regularly starved. It reminded Rosinante of some marines he’d known back in the day. 

 They sat down to eat in silence. Rosinante didn’t even try to say anything, he knew that would just make Ace clam up more. It was better to let him calm down a bit first. 

  And he did. As Ace ate his brow slowly became less furrowed, his posture less rigid. Food didn’t exactly make him happy, but it did help. 

 “Do you want to tell me what happened?” Rosinante asked calmly, trying to not sound demanding. 

 Ace tensed up again, he glared at Rosinante in that way that he often did. Rosinante met the glare peacefully and lit up a cigarette.  

 “I had a fight with Law”, Ace said it challengingly, like he was looking for a fight now. 

  _He’s trying to get a reaction out of me_ , Rosinante realized. He was familiar with the tactic, having worked for Doffy for so long. But when Doffy was coaxing someone for a reaction it was always about him asserting his power over someone, with Ace it felt more like… he was looking for something. 

 “Did either of you get hurt?” Rosinante asked, because he didn’t really know what Ace was looking for yet. 

  “I punched Law in the face.” 

Rosinante sighed. “I wish you two wouldn’t fight. But I trust you not to take it too far.” 

 And he did. Throughout watching the children spar he’d never seen any of them take it too far, even when they got angry or took losses personally, none of them tried to take it outside of the spars, none of them tried to  _really_  cause damage. And with Law, he had been worried about that initially. 

Ace jumped to his feet, suddenly getting angry again. “Is that it? You’re close with Law, right? You should be angrier about this!” 

“Ace”, Rosinante paused to think about his next words carefully. “I am close with Law. I’d like to think I’ve become closer with you, Sabo and Luffy as well. Kids fight sometimes and I’m not angry with you for that.” 

That seemed to take the wind right out of Ace’s sails. He dropped down to sit on the ground, staring downcast into the campfire. 

There was a beat of silence. Then Ace asked: 

 “What would you say if Gold Roger had a son?” 

What a strange question. Rosinante had a feeling he was getting closer to finding out what Ace was looking for. 

“Well, I suppose I’d ask him what Gold Roger was like.” 

Ace scoffed. “He doesn’t know. He never met Roger.” 

Ah. This wasn’t really about Gold Roger then. It would certainly explain why a boy as young as him was living with bandits in a jungle, if his father had been someone wanted by the government. And to get blamed for the crimes of his father, that he never even met… yes, it would explain the anger issues, at least. 

“I don’t really know what I’d say to him then. I guess it would depend on the kind of person he was.” 

Ace spat in the fire disdainfully. “Liar.” 

“Ace…” Rosinante never talked about his childhood, hadn’t since the first time he’d told Sengoku-san. But Ace was a kid who seemed to be almost always angry, who almost never smiled. And partly it reminded Rosinante of Law, but partly it reminded him of Doffy. And if he could help another kid from turning into the sort of person his older brother had become, he would. “My parents were hated by a lot of people. People called them demons, or pure evil and it eventually led to their deaths. They didn’t deserve the kind of treatment they got. Neither did me or my brother.” 

Ace was looking at him, now. Eyes wide and startled. It might’ve been the biggest reaction Rosinante had gotten out of him yet. 

“I don’t judge people by their parents, Ace.” 

“Even… even if I was Gold Roger’s son?” Ace looked so hopeful now that Rosinante could feel his heart almost breaking. It was a look that hadn’t really ever expected anyone to accept him or forgive him for whoever his father had been. 

“Yes. Even then”, Rosinante answered gently.  

Ace looked so shaken up that Rosinante decided to risk it and sat down next to him and pulled the boy close to him into a half-hug. It would be easy enough for Ace to break it off, if he wanted to. He didn’t. 

They sat like that for a while before Ace spoke again. 

“How long are you and Law staying on Dawn?” Ace’s voice was surprisingly fragile. 

Rosinante smiled a little to himself. He wondered if this was why Ace and Law hadn’t gotten closer, if maybe Ace had just been thinking of all this as too temporary. 

“Honestly, I don’t think we’ll be leaving. Law likes it here and we have no place we need to be. Unless you kids kick us out, of course.” 

Ace gave a small smile at that. “You can stay, for now.” 

Rosinante laughed and ruffled Ace’s hair which resulted in Ace punching him in the shoulder and wriggling further away from the man, huffing all indignant and adorable. 

“Maybe you should go make up with Law, then. If you’re not kicking us off, I mean”, Rosinante suggested lightly. 

Ace sent him a suspicious glare, probably wary of any new attacks on his dignity. “How?” 

“An apology would probably work.” 

Ace scrunched up his brows in slight confusion. “How do I do that?” 

Rosinante blinked in surprise. Had this kid really never apologized to anyone? Was that even possible? 

  

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

 

Law was throwing rocks at coconuts, seeing if he could get them to fall from the tree. So far, he’d only gotten two, since he mostly kept missing the coconuts and hitting the leaves. It didn’t really matter, he just wanted to feel like he was destroying something. 

 He heard Ace approaching long before the boy reached him, but he didn’t turn. Law wasn’t feeling like continuing the fight, but he would if he had to. He’d never been intimidated by anyone and he wasn’t going to start with some damn brat. 

 It didn’t seem like Ace was here looking for a fight, however. He sat down on a rock a little ways from Law and said nothing. Law kept throwing rocks, he didn’t have anything to say either. 

 “Why didn’t you use your devil fruit ability on me?” 

 Law missed another coconut. His aim was almost as bad as Luffy’s and he hated that Ace was here to witness it. “None of your business.” 

It got quiet again. Law could see from the corner of his eye that Ace seemed to be struggling to say something. Judging from all the fidgeting it took to get out, it was probably important. 

“Look, I’m sorry. For punching you.” 

 Law turned around to face Ace properly, not even bothering to see if he’d hit the coconut this time. 

 “Why?” 

This wasn’t how this worked. People like Ace didn’t apologize to him for hitting him, they just got angry when Law won a fight and held a grudge about it. The only reason people ever apologized to him, was if they were trying to manipulate him in some way, but Ace wasn’t the manipulating type. Sabo was though, so it was possible he’d told Ace what to say for some reason. That hurt, Law realized, he’d started to really like Sabo too. 

But Ace had been friends with Sabo and Luffy for a lot longer than Law had. Law didn’t really ever have a chance of fitting in, when Ace seemed to hate him no matter what he did. 

“Um. Why what?” Ace seemed confused, clearly Sabo hadn’t prepped him well enough. 

 “I mean”, Law crossed his arms and glared. “Why are you apologizing?”  

 “Cora-san said it would work.” Ace looked at him with that same confusion for a second more, before his face closed off again and he hopped on his feet and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Forget it.” 

 Cora _-san?_  

 “Why are you calling him that? You just called him Cora before.” 

 Because of all the people, Law could at least trust Cora-san. 

 Ace kicked the ground awkwardly and it was starting to dawn on Law that Ace really wasn’t this good of an actor. “I don’t know. Just felt like it.” 

Law didn’t really know what to say so he avoided Ace’s eyes. He wasn’t used to talking things out. He wasn’t sure this was better than being punched in the face, really. 

“Then… did you mean it? That you’re sorry.” 

“Yeah.” Ace was looking at him again with that open expression. He was clearly feeling embarrassed too, but he still tackled the issue head-on. Of course he did. Ace lived by the same tactics he fought with. There wasn’t a sneaky bone in his body and Law berated himself for ever thinking otherwise. 

Well Law wasn’t about to be outdone. “I didn’t use my ability on you because you would’ve hated me if I had.” 

There. An admission of weakness. If Ace was looking for anything to use against him, this would work. 

 Yet again, instead of going for the jugular, Ace decided to say something odd. “You don’t want me to hate you?” Ace asked him. 

 Law wanted to deny it, claim he didn’t care either way, because he was feeling so uncomfortable about this whole conversation. But Ace was still staring at him with demanding eyes and Law couldn’t find himself budging. 

 “No.” 

 “Why do you want to be our friend when you have Cora-san?” 

 Because he still felt lonely, sometimes. “Because I do. What about it?” 

 “What if I was a bad person? What if I had cursed blood? Would you still want to be my friend?” 

 Ace looked so serious, like he was asking the most important question ever, but Law couldn’t help himself. He snorted. 

 “What’s so funny?” Ace was getting angry again, he probably thought Law was laughing at him. 

   Cursed blood was an incurable disease inherited from your parents, killing you from the inside. Being a bad person was wanting to kill anything and everything you could, doing awful things and not even caring. It wasn’t whatever Ace thought it was. But he wasn’t going to say all that. 

 “That’s all bullshit. I don’t care about that”, Law answered. “Let’s just be friends, alright?” 

 For a moment it seemed like Ace was stunned speechless. Then, instead of words, he gave the biggest grin. Ace had never smiled at him before, Law realized belatedly. 

  “Alright. Let’s go find Luffy and Sabo. We should go hunting now”, Ace suggested, and it felt like they’d never had any fight in the first place. Like they hadn’t spent the last weeks toeing around each other. 

 Law grinned back. “Nothing with scales. I want proper meat today.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a side note: Cora-san doesn't know Gold Roger is Ace's dad. He thinks Ace was just using his name as a metaphor. Poor Roci doesn't really get that Ace is way too direct to be using metaphors. 
> 
> Sorry this chapter took so long to make! I was really struggling with it, but hopefully the next one will be faster, since it should be more fun to write. I'd really appreciate feedback if you guys have it :)


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12.

“What happened here?” Sabo asked, horrified.

Him, Ace and Luffy had just arrived on Law’s and  Rosinante’s  camp, to start their training for the day. Instead what they found was ravaged ground and what little property Law and  Rosinante  had littered around, like someone had thrown it all about and then stamped on it for good measure.

“Another wild animal attacked during the night”, Law answered angrily. “One of the big ones.” His left arm was wrapped in bandage but other than that he’d just suffered a few bruises.  Rosinante  gave the boys a cheerful wave of his hand and hoped they didn’t see the bandages peeking out from under his clothes.

 Ace and Sabo exchanged meaningful glances. It looked like a whole conversation was had in a few seconds. Both boys nodded in unison and turned to Law and  Rosinante  with determination.

“You should come stay with us. It’s safer there”, Ace stated arms crossed and clearly not willing to take no for an answer. Luffy immediately cheered in response and Sabo nodded emphatically. 

Rosinante  was thrown-off by the suggestion, he knew they’d started to get along a lot better lately, but he’d never have expected for the kids to invite them into their home.

 Law was suspicious for a completely different reason.

 “They’re bandits, right? The people you live with.”

 Ah, of course. Last time Law had gone to live with  criminals  things hadn’t really ended up that great.

 “Yeah, but they’re pushovers”, Sabo grinned. “They couldn’t even control Luffy when he first showed up, and he was practically a normal kid back then.”

“Was not!” Luffy piped up. “They couldn’t stop me if they tried!”

Honestly  Rosinante  couldn’t fault the bandits for that, Luffy was impossible to control and that had nothing to do with physical strength.

“Would they be alright with us coming with you?”  Rosinante  asked.

Ace just shrugged. “Sure.” Apparently, the bandits’ consent wasn’t a big concern.

Rosinante  had to admit the idea was appealing on several fronts. Obviously, they needed to get out of their jungle camp, it just wasn’t safe anymore. He figured even if these bandits turned out to be worse than expected, he could probably handle it. He had a lot of expertise on dealing with criminal organizations after all. But he also wanted to see how qualified these people, who were acting as guardians for Luffy, Ace and Sabo,  actually were .

The worry had been niggling at him since the first time he heard about the bandits. Sometimes one of the boys would mention something about them and the stories usually didn’t reassure  Rosinante  much.  

 “Well, what do you say, Law?”  Rosinante  asked.

Law chewed his lip in thought. “I guess it’s fine since they’re weak. If they cause trouble, I’ll cut them up.”

Sometimes  Rosinante  wondered if he should be discouraging these sorts of ideas more. It was probably bad that he found this kind of response reasonable. He really needed that book on parenting.

“Okay then, let’s pack up our stuff!”  Rosinante  beamed.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 The jungle hideout of the  Dadan  family was well hidden. It was unlikely  Rosinante  would’ve ever found the place on his own.

  It was a big house, with some bandits lounging around lazily in the yard, maybe working as lookouts, maybe just being lazy. There was some noise and yelling coming from the inside but judging by the kid’s casual expressions the level of noise was normal.

 As they got closer to the house, the possible lookouts finally noticed them and were  actually alarmed  enough to stop sunbathing.

“ Yo , Ace, who’re those?” one of them asked around the cigarette in his mouth.

Why were they all wearing turbans? That seemed like an odd costume choice. 

“That’s Law and giant  _ ossan _ , they’re coming to live with us!” Luffy declared happily.

A bandit leaning on the house groaned like he was in physical pain. “The boss isn’t  gonna  like that.”

“Yeah, stop bringing in more kids, Ace, Luffy”, the first bandit agreed. “The boss is  gonna  have a stroke one of these days.”

Ace scoffed and strolled into the house without an answer.

Was this a regular event? Ace didn’t really seem the type to bring friends over often.

As soon as they stepped foot inside the house a large man with a crest on his head noticed them. “Boys, you’re back already!” 

“Did something happen? Who’re those with you?” asked a small man in a turban.

 That apparently got the attention of someone in another room, because before anyone could answer a voice shouted from a nearby room. “What?  The brats brought  someone?  They better not have multiplied again!”  Loud footsteps ran to meet them, and the figure of a tall, broad woman came to a halt in front of them, pointing accusingly at Law. “A brat! Not another one!” She turned to Ace with a scowl. “I’m telling you this one can’t stay, there’s too many of you already. This isn’t a daycare!”

Law, not appreciating being talked about like he wasn’t there, made a disgusted face. “Who’s the hag?”

Sabo and Luffy laughed and even Ace grinned. “She’s just  Dadan , you get used to her”, Sabo answered with a good-natured shake of his head, like the head of the  Dadan  family was just an annoying feature that came with the house.

“Don’t call me that you damn brat!” The woman yelled. Then she finally seemed to notice  Rosinante . She took in his height, the clothes and the face tattoos and became visibly more wary. “And who the hell are you?” she growled and crossed her arms.

 She made an imposing figure, he had to admit. She wasn’t as tall as  Rosinante , but then again, few people were. She had an air of authority,  Rosinante  would’ve been able to tell she was the leader of the bandits even if no one had told him. Other than her stature, however, she didn’t seem particularly strong. In these parts all you needed to be considered fearsome was probably suitable looks and a loud voice. He could already see that she’d let Law stay there, since the kids seemed to have free reign over the house.

But she wasn’t dumb and certainly not the pushover Sabo had said she was. He could see that in her eyes, that were glaring back at him, assessing and hard.

 Well, it seemed  Rosinante  needed to have a closer look at her, to see if she made for a suitable guardian for his kids.

Rosinante  plastered a dumb grin on his face. “I’m  Rosinante , that’s Law. The boys tell me we’ll be living here from now on.”

Dadan  spat on the floor. “And why would they tell you that? They don’t usually like strangers.”

The kids didn’t particularly care about the hostile atmosphere. Luffy bounded further into the house holding Law’s hand and dragging the other boy with him. 

“Look, Law, I  wanna  show you where we sleep!” 

Law seemed reluctant to leave  Rosinante’s  side but  Rosinante  just waved his hand to signal that it was fine. Ace and Sabo followed them at a leisurely pace.

“Hey, Cora-san, we’re still  gonna  train today, right?” Ace asked before he went.

“Sure, later”,  Rosinante  confirmed. After the boys disappeared, he turned back to  Dadan . “We’ve actually known each other for a while now”, he admitted.

She took a drag of her cigarette, eyes stuck to the doorway the boys had just gone through. “Cora- _ san _ , huh? So, you’re the one who’s been training them. I wondered about that.” There was more authority in her voice and posture now. “You still haven’t been in the country for long, less than a month.”

“A little less than a month, yes.”

“Who’s the kid? Doesn’t look like he’s yours.”

Rosinante  let the smile slip down a little and looked  Dadan  straight in the eyes, willing her to see how serious he was about this. “He’s mine.”

There was a pause,  Dadan  took another drag of her cigarette.  Rosinante  was starting to itch for one too.

“What do you want from the brats? You collect ‘ em  or something?”  Dadan’s  words sounded accusing but  Rosinante  couldn’t help a weak laugh at that.

“I’ve wondered about that myself, sometimes”, he confessed with a shake of his head. “I don’t really want anything from them. Just to make sure they’re okay.”

Dadan  understandably looked unconvinced so  Rosinante  continued. “They get along well with Law, that’s originally why we stayed. But these kids really get under your skin, you know?” He smirked and judging by her scowl, she did know.

“So now you’ll be living here?” she asked.

“So now we’ll be living here”, he confirmed.

Dadan  scoffed. “We’ll see. If you’re living here, I expect you two to be pulling your weight. This isn’t a damn daycare!”

He couldn’t yet say for certain what sort of person  Dadan  of the  Dadan  family was, but  Rosinante  was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. She was rough around the edges and probably far from the ideal mother, but she would fight to protect  the  kids.

_ Not so much a bad parent as an inexperienced one, huh. Well, I guess that makes two of us. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter than usual but as an upside we finally get to see Dadan! I've been itching to introduce her since I started this fic so I'm really happy to finally have her in the story. She's probably one of my favourite One Piece characters.
> 
> Also a fair warning: I have no idea what I'm doing for the next chapter, so it might take me a while to write it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry I've been gone so long, I've been super busy with, among other things, graduation (still in process), getting into a new school, moving, doing a summer exchange in Hungary and now recently starting a new school. As an apology I'll try to get the next chapter up tomorrow!

Chapter 13.

They watched from their hiding spot as a couple of goons stepped out of the city gates and into the junkyard, carrying a sack of valuables and looking far too carefree for their surroundings. Law moved to get closer, but Sabo stopped him.

                      “No, those are Bluejam’s guys and we’re trying to stay off his radar right now. We’ll take the next ones.”

                      Law scowled. “You’ve mentioned the name before. Who is he and why are you scared of him?”

                      “We’re not  _ scared _ ,” Ace immediately protested. “But it’s not a good idea to make him come after us even more. The man’s crazy.”

                      Luffy nodded solemnly. “Porchemy beat me up real bad. He had spiky gloves.”

                      The memory was enough to make Sabo shudder, he could still remember how weak and pained Luffy had looked there, dripping blood with wounds all over his body after having been used as a punching bag for a sadist. Sabo gripped his pipe harder.

                      “Porchemy?” Law asked, voice level, and there was a dangerous glint in his eyes that Sabo hadn’t seen since they attacked him and Cora-san, when Law had threatened to kill them. “He’s part of Bluejam’s crew?”

                      “Was,” Sabo answered. “He’s dead now. Bluejam isn’t a forgiving kind of guy.”

                      “And that’s why we avoid him,” Ace concluded darkly.

Sure, Bluejam’s  men still looked for them, it wasn’t likely that they’d stop anytime soon, but capturing them wasn’t the highest priority anymore. So, at least until Ace and Sabo were sure they could beat up  Bluejam , they were trying to avoid him.

                      Law didn’t look happy with it, but he didn’t make a move toward the men again, so they settled down again to wait for the next victims.

                      Sabo, Ace and Luffy finally told Law about their pirate savings when it came up that Law also wanted to be a pirate. Sabo and Ace were super generous friends, so they were willing to let Law into the savings as long as he helped them in getting the money.

                      That’s why they were here now, stalking people coming back from the Capital, that had traded in whatever they’d found or stolen for money. It was a real shame to let Bluejam’s men go, too, since they looked like they’d gotten quite a bit of money for their efforts.

                      Law had pointed out that gathering money could also double as training, so he’d decided not to use his devil fruit powers while fighting.

                      Honestly, that made Sabo suspicious. Way when they had first met, Cora-san had said something about how Law wasn’t supposed to be using his powers in public. The boy didn’t seem to have any trouble using them around Luffy, Ace or Sabo but if anyone else - even one of the bandits - was near, he’d never use them. Cora-san wasn’t much better, he never left the hideout without a disguise of some sort and even though Law had once mentioned that the man had a devil’s fruit too, Sabo had never seen him use it. Sabo wondered why they needed to hide so badly.

                      In the end he didn’t ask, because he couldn’t really blame others for keeping secrets. He suspected Ace felt the same way. Luffy just hadn’t noticed anything was odd and even if he had, he probably still wouldn’t have cared enough to ask. 

                      None of them were very good at waiting, but the idea of treasure instilled some patience in them, enough at least to not blow their cover and get their hiding place found out. They were finally rewarded half an hour later when another two people walked out the gates, carrying some money. Good thing they showed up, too, because Luffy was getting almost unbearably cranky and Ace was quickly reaching the limits of his tolerance.

                      The ensuing fight didn’t give them a lot of chances at blowing off steam, unfortunately, their victims being far too weak. But just as Sabo had hit the remaining man unconscious, there was a shout coming from behind them.

                      “That’s those brats!”

                      Sabo spinned around clutching his weapon, because there was no one else that that could mean other than them. Ace cursed next to him. It was Bluejam’s men, the ones from before, but without their treasure this time.

                      The pirates charged them, some of them yelling threats over each other but their words got jumbled on top of each other and Sabo didn’t really bother trying to decipher them. There was six of them and all of them had swords or guns, which made the fight even more uneven.

                      It was the guns Sabo was more worried about, Luffy might’ve been immune to bullets but the rest of them weren’t, so they’d have to take care of the two gunmen first. Law seemed to have the same idea, he was already making his way to one of them, weaving through the fighting people like they were hardly even there. Ace was making his way to the other gunman, so Sabo decided to stay back to deal with a big guy wielding a huge hammer around. It was also a good chance to see Law fighting in action.

                      Sabo had noticed it before in their spars, of course, but seeing it like this, being able to compare how Ace and Sabo and the pirates were fighting to how Law went about it, really brought home the realization that Law had actual training in fighting. His moves were more fluent and purposeful, he seemed to have to think less about his attacks and dodges, relying more on instincts, which made his reaction time that much swifter. He was still weaker in physical strength than Sabo, Luffy or especially Ace, but not by so much anymore. 

                     Another thing about Law was how he used his pipe as a weapon. Luffy  had a tendency to  forget he was even holding a weapon and usually preferred to drop the pipe in the middle of a fight and just use his fists instead. Even Sabo and Ace wielded their pipes like clubs, just swinging hard and trusting in their physical strength. That wasn’t how Law fought. Law did use the pipe as a hitting weapon as well, but he also used it to trip up his opponents or to keep them away from him. There was finesse in Law’s fighting, more to it than just mindless swinging, and Sabo found the style appealed to him. He made a mental note to ask either Cora-san or Law to teach it to him later.

                     Admittedly Sabo had been getting distracted in his fighting while observing Law, but he finally managed to trip up his opponent and hit him unconscious. Without taking a breather he lunged for the next one, that’d been trying to sneak up on Luffy from behind, the bastard.

                    Sabo chanced a quick glance around him to make sure his friends were alright. Luffy was fighting right next to him, doing alright, even though every time he tried to use his powers to aid his punches, he’d inevitably miss. Sabo felt a bit of pride in how well Luffy was doing even despite his difficulties – Luffy’s kicks landed far more often than his punches  and Sabo could tell from experience that those stung. Ace was of course having no trouble a bit farther ahead, he’d disarmed the gunman but was still fighting him, probably about to win by now. Law had already disposed of his first opponent and was now fighting the remaining one, brows furrowed, but not looking particularly distressed.

                   Then, just as Sabo dodged a hit and was looking out for another one, he saw rapid movement from the corner of his eye, followed by new yelling. Sabo turned his head, just enough to see what was happening while still being able to keep an eye on the guy he was fighting. 

                  “Shit.”

                  More of Bluejam’s men had come over, maybe following after these ones. They’d seen the fighting and now they were charging over, intent on winning the fight with sheer numbers. Sabo didn’t have time to count them, but he’d estimate there was almost a dozen.

                  They were in such deep shit.

                  Ace sent his opponent flying, cursing heavily, so he’d probably noticed how screwed they were too.

                   The man Sabo was fighting - tall man with a sword, not enough brain cells to make a pair - grinned, apparently already anticipating a victory because of the reinforcements. His moment of distraction was enough for Sabo to drive his pipe to the man’s face. It wasn’t quite enough to put him out of the  fight,  but it would distract him for a while longer, since he was busy wailing.

                  “Ace, Law, to here!” Sabo called out. He figured if they had to fight a group this big, they better stick together. It would’ve been better to escape altogether but that wasn’t happening; they were bottled in by the trash heaps all around them and the only way out that wasn’t too slow was where Bluejam’s men were running in from.

                    Ace and Law obeyed, Ace just running over and kicking out the feet of the guy Luffy was fighting almost as an afterthought. Law slipped from his opponent simply enough and joined them in the defensive circle they’d sort of automatically formed.

                   “Your powers would be useful right now,” Ace grit out to Law from behind clenched teeth, his eyes on the enemies that were almost there.

Law grimaced unhappily and made to answer but then the pirates were within sword-stabbing distance and there wasn’t time anymore.

                   Sabo had to admit he agreed with Ace. They were all good at  fighting,  but these were actual adult pirates, used to fighting other adults – not to mention they had the superior numbers. Luffy was already struggling and Ace and Sabo had to stay on either side of him to keep him from having to fight more than one opponent at a time. Because of this Ace or Sabo weren’t doing much better.

                    Luckily, Law seemed to catch on to this quickly because suddenly there was a faint blue light surrounding the four of them, Law said something, and then without any warning they found themselves standing on the edge of the junkyard and the forest, several meters away from the fight.

                   “Run!” Law hissed and took off for the jungle, where anyone was unlikely to be able to follow them. 

                   Luffy took a second to understand what’d happened and then his eyes widened in realization. “Ah, Law cheated! He said he wasn’t gonna use powers!”

                   Ace and Sabo grabbed Luffy wordlessly and  followed after  Law.

 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dolog  hurried into the little shack he’d made for himself in the Grey Terminal. Right next to the crate he sometimes used as a writing desk, sometimes as a chair, was a pile of wanted posters, both old and new. There were other, smaller piles, haphazardly strewn across the shack, but  Dolog  had a hazy memory that what he was looking for was in this one. He tore through the pile frantically, eyes scanning faces and names. He could swear he still had  it;  it’d been unusual after all.

                      It wasn’t in this pile. No, of course! He kept his unofficial, non-marine made wanted posters in that big pile near his collection of shiny rocks. It had to be here. He was sure of it. The boy had been unmistakable.

                      It wasn’t in this pile either.  Dolog  was starting to fall into despair. But he could clearly remember the wording and photos in the wanted poster.  Dolog  had an impeccable memory, it was how he could keep doing this little side business of his profitable. He’d memorized hundreds of wanted posters on the  off chance  he’d one day see them around. Now,  Dolog definitely wasn’t  a strong man, he was no fighter, so he’d never tried to collect a bounty himself. Instead, he sold the info of the bounties’ whereabouts to marines and pirate hunters. Low-risk, low-paid.

                      He tried a new pile at the corner, it was his miscellaneous pile, so it was likely it could house what he was looking for.

                      This bounty though… This one hadn’t been low-paid, even just for information. Which was probably good, because if Dolog were to sell this kind of information it’d probably be safest for him to never be connected to the case at all.

                      There! Right under the bounty of Don Krieg, in the pile of better-hope-I’ll-never-see-them.

                      Dolog straightened the paper with trembling hands. On second look there was no doubt about it. The description, the photo, it all fit. The kid was obviously a little older and better fed than before, but you couldn’t mistake those sunken eyes or the deep frown. The poster even mentioned that he had a devil’s fruit, which had really been what had gotten Dolog’s attention when he’d seen the fight from afar.

                      He wondered if maybe just this once he should pretend he hadn’t seen anything. After all, this was just a kid. And the other kids he hung out with were infamously protective of their own. But…

Dolog  looked around his rundown shack, noted the water droplets leaking through his patchwork ceiling and onto his posters. There were ants crawling on the ground, the crate and his bed. He’d hidden some food under his mattress yesterday but this morning he’d noticed that someone had stolen it while he slept. Today he’d found nothing worth looting, and he hadn’t spotted another bounty in months.

                      For unimportant weaklings like him life was survival at any cost. It had never sat well with Dolog, but he didn’t attempt to hide from the truth of it either.

                      So, he swallowed his morals and dug out the den  den mushi  he’d hidden under his clothes. He had to think a bit on who to call. Obviously, a bounty hunter wouldn’t do, if they failed and the blame got traced back to him, there would be horrible, excruciating consequences. He knew a few information merchants higher up on the ladder than him, but if he involved too many people in this, he was going to lose a big portion of his cut. Finally, he decided on a name, someone who worked in both East and North Blue. She could doubtlessly get the information to the right people.

                      Dolog listened to the snail’s rings nervously. He’d almost never had to talk to this person and for that he’d been grateful.

                      “Hello,” came a gravelly, cigarette smoke permeated voice from the other end.

                      “This is Dolog, from the East Blue. I’ve found the bounty Donquixote Doflamingo’s been looking for. Trafalgar Law is in Goa Kingdom.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate naming my own One Piece characters, I can never decide on what the style should be since Oda changes his naming schemes so much. So I just went with the first hungarian word I could think of - fun fact: dolog means 'thing' in hungarian.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven't seen it yet, I posted a chapter yesterday, so read that before this one :)

Chapter 14.

Luffy was having a great time. They were playing hide and seek and Luffy had the best hiding place he’d ever found. There was  _ no way _  Ace was going to find him.

                      “…ninety-nine… one hundred. Ready or not, here I come!”

                      Ace turned around, eyes raking the surroundings in intense focus. Luffy peeked at him from his hiding place and had to cover his mouth with both hands to keep from giggling out loud. 

                      Ace stared right at him.

                      “Luffy, what are you doing, you idiot?”

                      Luffy froze, unbelieving that he could’ve been found already. Did Ace have magic powers?

                      “I can see  you;  you’re hiding in a bush wearing a red shirt, moron. And you’re right next to me.”

                      Luffy sprang up, pointing an accusing finger at Ace. “You cheated!”

                      Ace managed to move so fast that he’d already hit Luffy on the head before Luffy even had time to consider dodging.  “How did I cheat? I could hear you rustling in there when I was counting.”

                      “That’s cheating! You’re not supposed to listen.” Luffy stuck his tongue out in retaliation. “Ace is a big fat cheater!”

                      “Am not!”

                      “Are too!”

                      With a growl Ace launched himself at Luffy and both boys ended up wrestling on the ground in a mass of flailing limbs.

                      “So, does this mean we can finally stop playing?” Asked Law, who’d appeared out of nowhere. He looked grumpy, but he always looked grumpy. Law hadn’t wanted to play in the first place, saying he was too old for it, which was stupid. So Luffy and Ace and Sabo hadn’t listened to him and made him play anyway. Law was boring to play with though, when it was his turn to be It, he barely even looked and sometimes when he was hiding, he just started napping in the middle of the game.

                      “No!” Ace and Luffy yelled. Though Luffy’s yell came out muffled, because he was biting down on Ace’s ankle, while Ace was trying to shake him off it.

                      Sabo’s head popped into view. He was hanging upside down a tree branch, both hands holding onto his hat.

                      “I was the last to be found. That means I win,” he told them smugly. Luffy let go of Ace’s ankle with a gasp. Ace recoiled.

                      “ No,  you don’t, I didn’t even find you!” Ace protested.

                      “Yeah, exactly,” Sabo smirked.

                      Luffy and Ace shared a look.

                      Together they jumped Sabo, pulling him down from the tree to show him what happened to cheaters.

                      “Gah, Law, help me!” Sabo screamed.

                      Law leaned against a tree and grinned viciously. “Nah.”

                      The fight was hard and vicious, but Sabo eventually lost to their superior forces when Ace got him in a headlock and Luffy sat on his legs to keep him down.

                      “I still won!” Sabo declared.

                      “Well next time I’ll hide in the tree and then  _ I’ll _  win!” Luffy retorted.

                      “Stupid, now we know where you’ll be hiding,” Ace scoffed rolling his eyes. “Besides I found you first, so you’re It.”

                      “Nuh-uh, it’s Law’s turn!”

                      They turned to Law for confirmation, just to find that the oldest boy had fallen asleep during the scuffle. Three pairs of eyes narrowed dangerously. Malicious grins were shared while the boys got up, their fight completely forgotten.

                      As quietly as they could, they surrounded Law. Luffy on his left side and Ace and Sabo on his right.

                      Without a word Sabo lifted three fingers, then lowered one in a countdown. Luffy and Ace leaned closer to Law. Another finger went down. The boys formed their hands into makeshift megaphones. The last finger went down.

                      “WAKE UP, LAW!”

                      Law sprang to his feet like someone had lit him on fire. His eyes for a second wild and terrified, before he took in the three victorious grins before him and his expression melted into pure murder.

                      Another fight broke out and it was a long time before they got to continue their forgotten game of hide and seek.

                      Luffy was having a great time.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Getting into the city was ridiculously easy, like usual. It had indeed turned out that four kids standing on  each other's  shoulders made for too tall a figure, so Ace, Sabo and Law hid beneath the cloak and Luffy just walked beside them. Luffy seemed to be the happiest about it, since he didn’t have to be the one to shoulder the other two anymore.

                      After they had sold their loot of crocodile skin, Luffy had declared himself –to the surprise of absolutely no one – to be hungry.  So,  they went to eat to the central district. The restaurant had  really great  food, Sabo found it funny that for once Law was eating almost as much as the rest of them.

                      “Shut up,” Law glared and kicked him in the shin. “I’m just happy to eat something without scales on it.”

                      Sabo laughed harder at that, and he was still laughing when they escaped from the angry waiter through a third-story window. It was probably because he felt so good and at ease that he forgot to be alert. It was probably why he didn’t notice  _ that man _  before he suddenly called out Sabo’s name in the middle of the street.

                      To be fair, he’d honestly thought that man wouldn’t think him worth the trouble of looking for, especially after all this time.  Apparently,  he was just important enough to be still remembered, though. Shit.

                      “Who is that guy?” Luffy asked, still chewing a mouth full of meat.

                      “Why’s he calling for you?” Ace too wanted to know.

                      Sabo picked up his running speed and cursed hard inside his head. “Must be mistaking me for someone else. Let’s go.”

                      “He’s not following after,” Law stated after a while, quiet enough that only Sabo could hear him. Sabo didn’t answer  that,  and Law didn’t pursue.

                      A subtle glance and the sight of the intense faces of Ace and Luffy told him that they weren’t going to be anywhere near as tactful about this.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                      “We shouldn’t keep secrets from  each other,  now should we?” Ace questioned Sabo ominously, having forced him into a corner with the help of Luffy. 

                      Luffy nodded in agreement, both faces shadowed by intense curiosity and suspicion. 

                      “Spill it,” they demanded in unison.

                      Law actually thought the threat tactics were pretty good before the pair devolved into strangling Sabo before they even gave him a real chance to answer.

                      Law wanted to join in the interrogation himself, his curiosity was slowly killing him. The only thing stopping him was not wanting to appear like a colossal hypocrite.

                      “Just tell us already you idiot! I’ll kick your face in!” 

                      “Guahh! Alright, I’ll talk, I’ll talk!” Sabo caved in, scrambling for breath.

                      Law couldn’t help  himself;  he held his breath with Ace and Luffy, all his attention on Sabo.

                      Sabo kicked the ground, averting his eyes from them. “I’m the son of a noble,” he mumbled.

                      “The son of a noble!” Luffy exclaimed, clearly uncomprehending.

                      “Who is?” Ace asked, confused.

                      “I am!” Sabo yelled, now more frustrated that his big reveal wasn’t getting a more dramatic response.

                      Law, Ace and Luffy were unimpressed. “So?” This was the big secret? Law’s secrets had bigger secrets than this.

                      “You’re the ones who wanted to know!” 

                      Sabo was now definitely pissed off and for a while it seemed like another fight would break out, but instead of their usual bickering they somehow managed to coax Sabo’s life story out of him.

                      Law listened with avid interest. Sabo was born into a noble family that was more interested in the position their son could provide for them than their actual son. They were garbage parents that wore Sabo so down that he eventually decided to run away from home to a literal garbage heap, before he’d even turned ten. Laws hand were wound into tight fists, his nails biting deep into his palms.

                      More than anything Sabo wanted freedom and there were few things in the world that Law could identify with more.

“We have to make it out to sea someday! We’ll leave this country behind and gain our freedom! I want to see the world in all its glory and write a book about all the things I find. We’ve got to get stronger and become real pirates!”

                      Sabo’s enthusiasm was  infectious,  and Ace laughed. “I don’t need you to tell me that! I’m  gonna  become a pirate, beat  every last  person who stands in my way. I don’t care if the whole world hates me, I’ll become a great pirate and prove I’m better than them all! I won’t run from anybody, I’m just  gonna  make sure the whole world knows my name!”

                      Law felt torn between wanting to join in on sharing his dreams and wanting to keep as much about himself private as he could. He wasn’t even sure what he would say. What did he want, what was his dream? He wanted freedom, the freedom to go anywhere he wanted and do anything he wanted without having to look over his shoulder. He wanted to be strong enough to beat anyone who might’ve threatened him or his people.

                      …

                      His people? As in plural? When had that happened?

                      Luckily Law was torn out of his uncomfortable musings by Luffy declaring he was going to find the One Piece and become Pirate King. Law shared a beat of stunned silence with Ace and Sabo before Sabo burst into laughter.

                      “Ahaha! Man, you’re one crazy guy. You’re one to keep an eye on, that’s for sure.”

                      Law shook his head “Of course you want to become Pirate King. What else would you aim for?”

                      “But isn’t it gonna be a problem if all three of us want to be captain?” Sabo asked, completely ignoring the fact that Law hadn’t said he wanted to be a captain. He did, of course, and was going to be one, but still.

                      They were all determined to be the captain but none of them really wanted to fight about it right now, so they agreed to decide on that later when it was more relevant. Law was having an unexpected amount of fun imagining being in the same crew with them all. Sharing a ship with just the four of them… he wouldn’t hate it.

                      Ace dropped a bottle of sake and four  sakazuki  cups in front of them on a tree stump.

                      “Did you guys know,” he had a smirk on his face that was part shy and part sly, like he was imparting on them a big, personal secret. “If you exchange cups of sake, you can become brothers.”

                      “Brothers – really?” Luffy asked eager and excited. Sabo’s smile was pure determined excitedness. 

                      Law’s blood turned to ice in his veins.

                      “As pirates we may not be able to end up on the same crew,” Ace said as he was filling the cups. “But the bond of brotherhood we share will never die.”

                      Law could still smell the smoke. He could hear the crackle of the fire as it burnt down the hospital he’d left his sister in.

                      “No matter where we are, or what we do, this is one bond we can never break.”

                      His only remaining family member was  dead,  and nothing could ever reverse that. There wasn’t a devil fruit in the world that could bring her back and there wasn’t a damn thing Law could do to make it hurt less.

                      His family was dead. Cora-san had almost died. They could both still die if the marines or Doflamingo ever found out where they were hiding. And if they found out, they would burn down the entire country and kill anyone who was hiding him and Cora-san to get to them.

                      Law’s heart was beating too fast, it felt painful.

                      “I can’t,” he blurted it out without thinking. “I can’t be your brother.” If he was  smart,  he would’ve turned away or run away instead if speaking. Then he wouldn’t have had to see the way the faces of his three closest friends fell, like the rejection was completely unexpected and so  all the more  devastating.

                      Law took a step back, wanting to run away, but he couldn’t look away. Sabo’s mouth was hanging open, Luffy’s eyes were the widest he’d ever seen them. Ace’s expression shuttered shut, angry and closed off.

                      Law knew that expression. He’d seen it in the mirror. He knew in that moment that if he ran away now, he would never be welcomed back. Ace couldn’t trust him again. Sabo would pretend nothing was wrong, but he’d be hurt for a long time. Even Luffy would have a hard time forgiving him.

                      “I- “he spoke again without thinking. He wanted to make it better. He really, really,  _ really _  didn’t want to lose them. “I used to have a sister.”

                      They were staring at him. He didn’t want to tell this. But he didn’t want to be alone again, either.

                      “She died. Because I wasn’t a good enough brother. And I still have people after me and I’m still not strong enough.  So,  I can’t be your brother.” He stared back at them hard, willing them to understand. “I’d get you killed.”

                      Sabo tilted his head, like he was working through a puzzle. “And you don’t want us killed?”

                      “Of course not!”

                      To Law’s amazement that seemed to do it. Luffy grinned, Sabo shrugged like he was  embarrassed,  and Ace loosened his hard stance, his eyes starting to show light again.

                      “We’re not gonna die, stupid!” Ace declared with a grin. “Not even if you kill us.”

                      “Yeah, we’ll protect you, don’t worry,” Luffy promised without an ounce of shame, even though he was one of the weakest people Law had ever known.

                     Law  frowned;  they weren’t getting it. “You don’t get it! They’d kill you easily, I’ve seen them kill people. They almost killed Cora-san before.”

                      Luffy didn’t even give pause. “Then we’ll protect Cora-san too. He our dad now, so we have to protect him anyway, right?”

                      “What?” Sabo cut in, sounding alarmed.

                      Luffy shook his head the way he did when he thought someone was being stupid. “He’s Law’s dad, so if we’re brothers now that makes him our dad too. So, it’s fine, we’ll just help you, Law.”

                      Law thought he probably should’ve said that Cora-san wasn’t his dad. He didn’t. He definitely should’ve said that Luffy’s words didn’t change anything. He didn’t say that either.

                      “Oh,” he said instead, wondering where his words had gone and where his anger had went. 

                      Luffy grinned.

                      Law looked at Luffy, then at Sabo and finally Ace. They looked back and they weren’t angry or disappointed anymore either.

                      And Law  _ yearned _ . He wanted a  family;  he didn’t want to be alone or have to do everything by himself. And here they were offering him all that so easily.

                      “Okay,” he agreed. The others broke into wide smiles and Law couldn’t help but follow suit. It felt like he might split his skull in two he was smiling so wide.

                      Four sakazuki cups were raised to the air in celebration.

                      “Starting today – we are brothers!”

                      “Yeah!”

                      The alcohol burned on the way down, but Law thought that probably wasn’t why he felt warm all over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't normally like to take dialogue from the manga/anime this heavily, but I really couldn't see a way around it this chapter. Sorry if it bothers someone. 
> 
> Next chapter might take a while again, because I've just started a new school and that'll probably keep me busy. The fic is not dead, though, we're nearing the end and it's a matter of pride for me to finish this now! See you when I can, thanks for reading!


End file.
